I've been meeting FFII folk her in Brux, so the following should be pretty accurate.
The directive is not on the agenda for Jan 31 (the next fisheries-type meeting), and it's not expected to appear on the agenda between now and Monday. Not sure who's blocking it this time.
On Feb 2nd and 3rd, JURI will be meeting and they are expected to vote on whether or not to take the directive back to a first reading. I spoke to our JURI rep Brian Crowley's assistant on Wednesday and I think he'll vote in favour of the restart. (the restart would allow the EP to fix the directive again)
If JURI are unsuccessful in getting a restart, we can still ask our other MEPs to call for a restart. The requirement is that 37 MEPs sign a petition. 61 signed an earlier petition but "the tabling office" are disputing the acceptability of that petition. The tabling office are believed to be on shaky ground with their rejection, so there should be a restart if we just push our MEPs to not let them forget this issue.
In the mean time, we still have to try get this directive changed from an A-item to a B-item on the Council's agenda - meaning it would be discussed rather than just pushed through.
Either a restart OR getting it made a B-item would be a big win for us and both are within reach.
Our letter to Brian Crowley was sent this morning: http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/SoftwarePatents_2fJuriLetter1
The letter I was working on will be sent some time next week with the aim of getting the directive moved to a B-item.
So it's good news on the swpat front, and no rush for doing anything before monday.
Have a good weekend.