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European Council Approves Software Patents

Posted by michael on from the do-you-hear-that,-mr.-anderson?-that-is-the-sound-of-inevitability dept.

A. S. Bradbury writes "ZDNet reports that the EU Council has voted to pass changes to European patent law that will allow the patentability of software. See the FFII for more coverage. Currently, the FFII states 'The Irish Presidency's proposal was passed, with support from Germany, France and most of the other countries whose ministers had publicly promised to oppose or at least abstain. The only no vote came from Spain (to be confirmed), Italy and a few others abstained.' As you may remember, Germany had previously promised to vote against software patents. The FFII news page seems to have been showing growing support in European countries for the FFII and other organisations fighting against software patents, but unfortunately that wasn't enough. So, what now? The European elections are approaching, which means MEPs might be more willing to listen to our views than normal. Slashdot has covered software patents in Europe before."

5 of 482 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What do you think? by hcetSJ · · Score: 5, Insightful
    all the thievery of intellectual property, and all the monopolizing tactics of the biggest corporations
    ...is exactly what software patents will be used for.
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    This side up.
  2. Passed AGAINST the will of the parliament by gspr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I may be mistaken, but it is my impression that this was passed against the will of the EU Parliament. Yet another example of how the EU's internal structure can be undemocratic.

  3. Re:Think about righteous patents for once by benja · · Score: 5, Insightful
    I think they issue patents for obviously stupid stuff, but that's not really the big problem: who cares if infinite compression is patented, given that we know you cannot do it anyway?

    It's much more of a problem that obvious things are patented -- for example, a LOT of webshop features that you would think obvious have been the subject of patents that have been issued by the European Patent Office.

    The point of the directive, as the EU parliament made it, was to outlaw all software patents. The point of the directive as the council made it (and the ones who actually wrote it are the patent office officials) is to allow all those patents in practice.

  4. "open source and anti-globalisation movement" by alexborges · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Thats from the article....

    Now WHO THE FUCK told them they could throw those two cats in the same bag?

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    NO SIG
  5. Re:Different laws... by Znork · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because software patents cover concepts themselves. If it were allowed in literature, youd have patents for 'novel where a person gets murdered', 'novel based partially in historic facts', etc. With the current rate of software patenting it already is pretty much impossible to write any program doing anything without violating several patents.

    Software is already covered by copyright, which protects a certain implementation of something, so the intention of software patents implicitly is to extend beyond the implementation to the very concept of doing or accomplishing something.

    Software, unlike pretty much any other field, becomes twice-covered by both patents and copyright.