Eclectic Echoes

EU Software Patents Vote

The EU voted yesterday on the Software Patent issue. This is just the first step of many towards an actual law, but it has been hotly contested with large scale demostrations, political intrigue and even threats by the EU commissioner. The result is not as clear cut as many would have liked to see, but in large part it appears that the EU Parliament has made a stand against the BSA and liberal patents of processes, business methods and software such as we are plagued with in the United States. There were so many amendments proposed, and they were all vote on in a very short period of time, so it may take a few days (especially with translation issues) to get to the bottom of it all. At this point though it appears that:

• No pure software patents allowed-Article 3, which allowed that all software by definition was patentable, was killed
• Business Methods can’t be patented
• Algorithms and data processing can’t be patented
• A patented technique is allowed to be used without authorization or license if it is needed to create or ensure interoperability or to maintain standards–as you can imagine this one was strenuously opposed by some multinationals…<cough>Microsoft<cough>.

So it looks like key amendments were made to protect the EU from descending into the quagmire that is U.S. Patent law. Everything isn’t terribly rosy–the draft needs to navigate through a convoluted process to become an actual law. The EU Commissioner may make good on his threats to withdraw the directive in it’s entirety and achieve patent “harmonization” through a renegotiation of the EPC which would not require the Parliament’s approval, and would in essence bypass–from my understanding of it–the input and wishes of the general population. Of course it’s not like anything like that ever happens on this side of the ocean…