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By forcing makers of generic drugs to win court permission to bring their versions to market, the big patented-drug makers "could use this proposed law to extend their monopoly by stretching their patent a further 18 months or so beyond its expiry date," Mr. Perry said. "We agree that patents should be respected, but we can't support what would end up allowing for an abuse of the legal system to prevent legitimate competition."
Ms. Fourtou, the Parliament member shepherding the proposed law through debate, said in an interview that she had begun to see merit in leaving patents out of it, because "the issue of patents is so complex."
Last month, a debate on another proposed law on the patentability of software provoked one of the bitterest lobbying battles the Parliament had ever seen, according to several members. Ms. Fourtou said she did not want to see the enforcement law bog down in the same way.
"We are not in a rush, but we'd like this directive agreed before the union takes in the new members from Eastern Europe," she said. She said she also wanted to see the law enacted before parliamentary elections next summer. "I may not be here after the elections," she said.
While she is willing to narrow the proposed law to exclude patents, Ms. Fourtou is trying to expand its reach over copyrights, and in doing so she has drawn some criticism for a perceived conflict of interest.
The commission's original draft limited criminal penalties to those who violate copyrights "for commercial purposes" - language that would exclude consumers swapping music files.
But Ms. Fourtou has struck that limitation from the amended text of the proposed law. "In this sense, the scope of the directive is too narrow," she said. "Even if you aren't downloading music for profit, you still are having a very negative effect on authors and musicians. Even a young boy who does it innocently causes an economic countereffect.
"The Internet is a new way of living for young people," she continued. "It would be very good to send out a message to them, teach them right from wrong."
Ms. Fourtou said the change also brought the proposed law into line with World Trade Organization agreements on intellectual property and with "the wishes of a large number of professionals," referring mainly to the record industry.
One of the world's largest record companies is owned by Vivendi Universal, a French conglomerate whose chief executive is Ms. Fourtou's husband, Jean-René Fourtou.
Ms. Fourtou said that when she was given charge of the proposed law in March, neither she nor her colleagues in Parliament saw her husband's job as a reason for her to recuse herself. "There was a plenary session of the Parliament in July last year," when Mr. Fourtou took the post at Vivendi, she said. "My colleagues all saw his name and his photo in the newspapers. It was not a problem for them. My conscience doesn't have a problem with this."
Some lawyers and legal experts say that, whether it was influenced by her husband's position or not, Ms. Fourtou's amendment would give rights holders too much power.
William Cornish, a professor at Cambridge University, and Josef Drexl, Reto Hilty and Annetee Kur from the Max Planck Institute in Germany criticized lawmakers in a statement for rushing through a disproportionate bill tailored too closely to the wishes of lobbyists.
"Haste and political pressure from interest groups do not make for good counsel when it comes to regulating complex and sensitive fields like that of sanctions and procedural measures for I.P. protection," they wrote.
Thomas Vinje, a partner in the Brussels law firm Morrison & Foerster who shares the concerns expressed by the academics, said Ms. Fourtou's amendments made a bad proposal worse. "She is putting a dangerous weapon in the hands of, among others, the big record companies," he said.
Internet service providers worry about being caught between the proposed law and other European Union rules on data privacy. A provision of the enforcement bill would subject them to criminal sanctions if they failed to provide information to copyright holders about subscribers who may be infringing their rights.
"The balance between privacy of subscribers and the duty to cooperate with right holders seeking to protect their intellectual property that was reached in the e-commerce directive could be changed by this directive," said Tilmann Kupfer, British Telecom's European regulatory manager.
Mr. Bolkestein, the European commissioner responsible for the proposed law, said in an interview in September that he was not aware of concerns that it could trip up legitimate businesses, and said his staff would look into them. Three weeks later, his spokesman, Jonathan Todd, said the commission stood by the draft it presented in January.
"The directive changes nothing regarding the definition of rights, whether they be patent rights, copyright or any other kind of right," Mr. Todd said. "All this changes is the penalties."
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