Originally posted by tangerine
They already tried to push it several times, and they will surely try again.
Indeed they have, and will continue to. Someone said in an article: \"There is too much money to be extracted for patent lobbyists to give up and go home\".
Thus, we must remain wary of anything in the area of patents.
The most likely things I see are:
1) The \"community patent\", which, according to software-patent-friendly MEP Toine Manders,
can slip in software patents: Originally posted by MEP Toine Manders
This directive concerning software patents can, if necessary, be brought under the umbrella of the Community Patent.
2) The EPO, which may grant SW patents, and judges setting up case-law in it\'s favor.
However, the only way big industries tend to be creative and innovative is in finding ways to buy legislation and extract money, so expect to be unpleasantly surprised.
This, therefore, is only a partial victory. It would have been preferrable if a directive that clearly excludes software and other forms of ideas from patentability would have passed. However, the European Council would never have let anything pass that even remotely excludes software. Thus, the rejection was the best possible result, and I am very relieved at it.
However, we must not ignore the fact that the clear \"no\" only came because the conservative fraction decided to vote against the directive. What\'s problematic about this is that their reason was that thy
couldn\'t get as much patentability as they wanted!
Edit:
In
this article an US patent expert is quoted saying that \"the EU Parliament has been fed a \"steady diet of disinformation.\"\" (by the patent lobbyists).
Also, UK IT lawyer David Harris is quoted saying that \"rich American software companies and their European branch offices \'wine and dine\' politicians and Eurocrats - they employ knowledgeable and sophisticated lobbying.\"
This proves that we are nowhere near saved from patents on ideas.
Also see
this article. According to it, the UK is already trying to get the \"Comminity Patent\" back in motion.
