Slashdot Mirror
Software Patents In The European Union Continued...
Christopher Reimer writes "O'Reilly Policy DevCenter has a nice overview concerning the legalizing software patents in the European Union. From the article: 'The Computer Implemented Inventions Directive (CIID), which seeks to clarify the issue, is still being fought over in the EU and may or may not result in legalizing them. For small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and in particular, free software projects, there is much to lose.'"
Please do not get confused. The Parliament is doing the Right Thing(tm).
It is the European Commision which does what it wants..or rather what Big Business(tm) wants...
Try http://writetothem.com/.
This is not true. The parliament voted explicitly against the directive as presented to them by the EU Commission and made many important changes. However, the broken decision process in the EU allowed the Commission to totally ignore the Parliament's decision and revive the Commission's old version of the directive to vote about.
Well, would you believe it; seconds after I posted my previous message, I got a response from Richard Corbett MEP. He includes a nice summary of his position, copied here:
"My position is as follows:
* I am not in favour of the patenting of software as exists in the US.
* Europe needs a uniform legal approach to stop the drift towards extending patentability to areas, which would not have been traditionally allowed, and to stop patentability of pure business methods, algorithms or mathematical methods.
* Software products as such, must not be patented.
* Opensource software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive must not have adverse effects on opensource software and small software developers.
* Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies."
I'm much more encouraged by those views. Let's just hope they translate into actions.