EU software patent directive approved

Monday, 7 March 2005 13:18 EST

The proposed European patent law has passed today one more hurdle on the way to final approval: the EU's Competitiveness Council in Brussels formally adopted an agreement on the so-called computer-implemented inventions directive.

The new legislation could make easier for technology companies to patent their inventions in Europe, The Industry Standard reported.

The decision means that the process of approving the legislation, which had ground to a halt in December, can be restarted. The text of the agreement approved Monday now passes to members of the European Parliament (MEPs) for debate.

The Parliament's members, however, are expected to demand far-reaching changes to ensure that the legislation does not apply to computer programs or to software itself. They remain angry that their request last month to restart the decision-making process was ignored.

Opponents of the legislation, including the open source software community and some IT vendors, including Sun Microsystems Inc., say the proposal would open the door to a U.S.-style patent regime. Small software developers would be shut out of the market, because they would be unable to pay for licenses for patented technology and could face crippling legal costs in order to use patented software in their own products.

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