[FYI] Software patents: will Europe roll over for the multinationals?

["Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/1/13942.html

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Software patents: will Europe roll over for the multinationals?  

By: Graham Lea  

Posted: 12/10/2000 at 13:38 GMT  

Software patents could become the kiss-of-death for many software 
developers, because it is becoming impossible to write a program 
without a serious risk of falling foul of some patent - frequently, 
an undeserved and opportunist one. The threat is also grave for many 
smaller businesses in Europe. They could easily be threatened by out-
of-the-blue demands for patent licensing fees for their software, or 
for some process on their Internet site.  

At a well-attended meeting sponsored by French MEP Gilles Savary and 
arranged by the Eurolinux Alliance at the European Parliament in 
Brussels this week, attention was drawn to new moves in Europe to 
legalise software patents. In Europe there exist two totally 
independent bodies with responsibility for legal issues connected 
with patents: the European Union set up by the Treaty of Rome and now 
having 15 members, and the European Patent Office (EPO) set up by the 
Munich Convention and having 19 members.  

[...]

The ponderous EU, with three of the European Commission directorates 
involved in the patents issue as well as the two co-legislators (the 
European Parliament and the Council of Ministers) that superintend 
it, has been threatening a directive (as European laws are called) on 
software patents, but has been too slow and now accepts that its 
directive will not appear until after the EPO meeting. The EU does 
have a champion in enterprise and information society commissioner 
Erkki Liikanen, who said in an email read at the Brussels meeting 
(yes, he replies to his own email): "I am absolutely against the US 
patent practice in this field" and is urging internal market 
commissioner Frits Bolkestein to arrange a consultation about the 
EPO's plans.  

[...]

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