EU Parliament Approves Software Patents

AnteTempore writes "The voting has just ended. Few good and several bad amendments were accepted. The directive proposal was accepted: 361 for, 135 against, 28 abstentions. The precise numbers and results for each amendment will be available on europarl.eu.int tomorrow." Reader swentel submits this report on the vote (French) with slightly different numbers (364 voting yes, 153 No, 33 abstaining) but just as bad. Watch this story for updates. Update: 09/24 15:44 GMT by T : Dr.Seltsam writes to say that the early reports are "not quite correct. The German publisher Heise states in this article, that the vote concerned strong changes on the directive." In particular, "pure software patents will not be allowed." Google's translation engine does a decent job with the German.

Comments

Re:A quick translation...

[timbloid]

so that a data-processing program is patentable, it is not enough that it is new, it is necessary still that it allows a technical innovation independently of its own execution.

So, if I write a dataprocessing program that can be used by another piece of software to do something new....then I can patent it...or the other bit of software...or neither...

The text of origin was considered to be "fuzzy" and "ambiguous"

Looks like they did a good job clearing it up... ;)

Re:What happens to the world..

[rhadamanthus]

Intellectual property is a myth. You CANNOT and SHOULD not be able to own an idea. I am beginning to think that this may be a real turning point in civilization as we know it. Imagination and the associated innovation based off that imagination is what makes us able to do so many amazing things. Now, you can imagine building something to change the world, you can even imagine how to build it, but if someone has previously thought of it, you are in for a losing legal battle. This may be an extreme statment with regard to software patents, but the premise is frightening in either scenario. This is a legal restriction on free thought and development. Software patents are just one piece of the larger takeover.

--rhad

Re:Indicative

[JaredOfEuropa]

the politicians who are supposed to represent the people/national interest.

Ah, but the politicians are representing national interests in this case... or at least they think they are.

I know Bolkenstein, the man who drafted the original Directive, from when he was active in national politics. His line of thinking is 'good for corporations = good for the economy = good for the people'. He fails to see how this equation is false in many cases, including the case at hand. Because of this line of reasoning, he will give more weight to the opinion of large corporations, whose impact on the economy is largest. Smaller companies carry less weight, and the least weight of all is given to the voice of an individual person.

Another issue with Bolkenstein and many, many, many other politicians is that they believe that most issues are way too complex for the common people to understand. That is why they think they act in our interests even if they go against our express wishes'. And it's not just the majority of the common people, but all of them: professors and garbage collectors are all equally ignored. In true spirit of the Dutch 'poldermodel', the only groups that have this politician's ear are corporations, unions, and other politicians.

Re:Bleh.

[kmurray]

Small companies can't afford to go around patenting every little detail of their software, like some big companies. Lawyers cost money, lots of money. I know.

The real problems is the broadness of the patent law. The people giving out the patents have no idea what makes the patent novel. Patents should be revolutionary, not evolutionary. Crap is getting let through and then it is off to the races with attorneys. Then who wins?