... because it's only a No to the proposed legislation. Even MEPs who favour software patents voted No, because they prefered to have no directive instead of one that restricts patentability.
Unfortunately software patents do exist in Europe (more than 30000) and they can be used to menace IT companies, as there is always the risk that a judge interprets the patent law the same way as the patent offices who granted the patents.
So the discussion is not over yet. Probably it will go on in the European Patent Office, controlled by 30 governments.
What would be rejected is the proposed EU directive harmonizing the national laws on software patents. Even without such a law, thousands of software patents have been granted by the European Patent Office, by bending the exclusion of the patentability of "software as such". Judges are likely to interpret the law similarly.
Software patents do exist in Europe and the only way to make them invalid is a directive that effectively excludes software from patentability. So the rejection of the proposed (pro-softpat) text does not really solve the problem.
Heise (and Cohn-Bendit) are wrong on this. The delay is due to administrative reasons only ( translations into 20 languages are necessary!).
No governement has yet indicated it might change it's vote, even the Dutch have not. As a EU presidency they don't want to be the ones who complicate the situation in the EU council.
It will take more pressure from national parliaments to make governments change their positions.
Slashdot Mirror
... because it's only a No to the proposed legislation. Even MEPs who favour software patents voted No, because they prefered to have no directive instead of one that restricts patentability. Unfortunately software patents do exist in Europe (more than 30000) and they can be used to menace IT companies, as there is always the risk that a judge interprets the patent law the same way as the patent offices who granted the patents. So the discussion is not over yet. Probably it will go on in the European Patent Office, controlled by 30 governments.
What would be rejected is the proposed EU directive harmonizing the national laws on software patents. Even without such a law, thousands of software patents have been granted by the European Patent Office, by bending the exclusion of the patentability of "software as such". Judges are likely to interpret the law similarly.
Software patents do exist in Europe and the only way to make them invalid is a directive that effectively excludes software from patentability. So the rejection of the proposed (pro-softpat) text does not really solve the problem.
When the political agreement in the council was reached on May 18th last year, it was only Spain that voted No. Belgium and Poland abstained.
Heise (and Cohn-Bendit) are wrong on this. The delay is due to administrative reasons only ( translations into 20 languages are necessary!). No governement has yet indicated it might change it's vote, even the Dutch have not. As a EU presidency they don't want to be the ones who complicate the situation in the EU council. It will take more pressure from national parliaments to make governments change their positions.
I have checked the report and made a Google search, but still can't figure out what "ICT" means.