Infoworld: EU headed for limited software patent law

[James Heald <j.heald@ucl.ac.uk>]

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/06/18/EU%20headed%20for%20limited%20software%20patent%20law%20(IDGNS)_1.html

EU headed for limited software patent law

Supporters of greater protection argue Europe should step in line with
U.S
 

 
By Paul Meller, IDG News Service June 18, 2003  
 
 

BRUSSELS -- The European Parliament is unlikely to demand many changes
to a proposed law on software patents that already has the backing of
national European governments, parliamentary spokesman Nikolaos Tzorkias
said Wednesday.

A committee charged with leading the debate on the directive within the
European Parliament agreed on a version of the text that makes only
minor changes to the original text written by the Union's executive
body, the European Commission.

"The committee gave strong backing to the proposed EU-wide rules for the
patentability of computer-implemented inventions," Tzorkias said.

In addition to winning 20 of the 29 votes cast in the legal affairs
committee, Tzorkias said the position agreed by the committee has
backing from the largest political party in the European Parliament, the
conservative European Peoples' Party, as well as support of the
third-largest voting block, the Liberal party.

The Socialists, the second largest group in the Parliament, are divided
with some in the party siding with the Green party in opposing the
directive, and others supporting the committee's position, Tzorkias
said.

"The vote at committee level clears the way for a straightforward vote
at the plenary session of the Parliament. The result seems absolutely
clear now," he added.

EU lawmakers from the three institutions involved with the draft law
appear to be converging on a position that ignores views from both
extremes of the debate over software patents, and endorses the approach
to patentability currently applied by the European Patent Office.

Free and open-source software supporters argue that patents should not
be awarded to software under any circumstances, while supporters of
greater protection argue that Europe should step in line with the U.S.
and Japan, which both have fairly lax rules permitting software
developers to register patents for business methods.

The European Parliament is likely to support a law that permits software
patents but limits their application to inventions that have a technical
effect outside of just a computer program. A program could only be
patented if it runs in conjunction with some sort of device such as an
intelligent household appliance or a mobile phone.

"I am relieved they kept the status quo," said Thaddeus Burns, a patent
lawyer in the Brussels office of law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer &
Feld. Burns believes Europe should fall into line with Japan and the
U.S. by allowing business methods to be patented, but feared that EU
lawmakers would move in the opposite direction under pressure from
software patent opponents.

He believes that without patents, software developers have no chance of
protecting their inventions, but he warned that the European approach,
which requires proof of an invention’s technical effect, would make it
more expensive for European developers to protect their intellectual
property than in the U.S.

"In the U.S. you just have to prove that your invention is novel, it
isn’t obvious and that it is useful. The technical effects requirement
will make it more time consuming and therefore more expensive to
register inventions in Europe," Burns said.

Open source and free software supporters argue that they don’t want or
need patent protection. Patents, they say, create a legal minefield that
only the biggest software firms can navigate successfully, and they
don’t offer any real protection because patent disputes are nearly
always won by the party with the biggest legal budget.

The proposed directive steers a course midway between these two extreme
views, and has won the support of organizations such as the Business
Software Alliance (BSA), which represents firms including Microsoft and
Apple.

"We support the move towards a harmonized European approach to software
patents," said Francisco Mingorance, director of public policy, Europe
for the BSA, adding that the BSA doesn’t want a U.S.-style system. "We
agree that technical effects should be a condition of patentability," he
said.

The text of the proposed law is due for debate by the whole European
Parliament at its plenary meeting later this month.