[Patents] European Union plans to adopt US kind "liberal practice" on softwarePatents

[Bernard Lang Bernard.Lang@inria.fr]

http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/speeches/spch101.htm

Speech by Commissioner Frits Bolkestein Nijenrode, Breukelen, 27 March
2000

   My services are currently exploring if the Directive should be
   confined to a harmonisation of the status quo as defined by the
   jurisprudence or if it should go beyond the status quo and into the
   direction of the more liberal practice in the US.

The answer is pretty clear...

 we are studying whether we will just legalize the illegal behavior of
EPO or whether we'll go further than that.

  Bernard

On Mon, May 15, 2000 at 11:50:53PM +0100, Nick Fleming wrote:
> 
> > The Software Directive announced for Summer of this year will be a further
> > building block of the legislative framework. The Directive should put an 
> > end to
> > a situation where computer programs "as such" are legally excluded from
> > patentability but thousands of patents for  technical inventions using a
> > computer program have been granted by the patent offices. 
> 
> So, it appears that the commissioner understands that computer programs "as 
> such"
> are legally excluded, yet have been granted patents. What I want to know is,
> will the Software Directive legalise such patents, or will it implement the 
> main
> obligations of the 1996 WIPO Treaties (as mentioned elsewhere in the same 
> speech)
> and effectively restore software to their rightful copyright-only status ??
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Nick F.
> 
> 
> 
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