Software patents limited by European Parliament

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25/09/2003

The European Parliament yesterday approved a controversial proposal for a Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions, but only after making amendments to ensure that patents would not be issued for "actual software."

The draft, which seeks to harmonise Europe's rules, passed by 361 votes to 157, with 28 abstentions. But the European Commission appears to be unimpressed.

The “computer-implemented inventions” covered by the draft Directive are described as devices like mobile phones, intelligent household appliances, engine control devices, machine tools and computer program related inventions.

The parliamentary debate on the draft Directive was cancelled twice in response to criticisms that the proposed legislation risked bringing to Europe the more liberal regime of software and business method patenting that exists in the US.

The most recent draft still did not satisfy critics in the open-source and small business communities, and a total of 78 amendments were put forward for debate. Accordingly, the amendments passed yesterday have tightened the wording – perhaps sufficiently to please small businesses and developers, but to the apparent annoyance of big players in the industry.

Under the proposal, an “invention” requires a contribution to the state of the art in a technical field. For an invention to be patentable it must be technical, new, non-obvious, and susceptible of industrial application. But the draft now states that a computer-implemented invention should not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus.

This means that patents should not be granted for software inventions that implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the machine or network on which it operates.

The draft was also amended to ensure that the use of a patented technique in order to ensure interoperability between two different computer systems or networks would not be regarded as a breach of that patent.

Finally, MEPs have worded the law to ensure that suppliers cannot be sued for infringing a patent – so only the end-users face this risk.








Za one koji ne znaju znacaj ove vesti.
Po starom predlogu zakonu moglo je da se bukvalno sve patentira.
Npr neko skupi 30k Eura i patentira upotrebu nijansi zelene boje na forumima i tuzi MyCity za naknadu stete od 1M Eura.

Tako je na primer Sun patentirao nacin imenovanja fajlova.

[Link mogu videti samo ulogovani korisnici]