Taken from -> EU votes today on legalising software patents by Matt Whipp

Software patents should not be allowed. Why should developers that work independently, and develop interesting new technologies have to pay licence fees because someone else has already filed a patent before them. In the other fields of science, biotech etc. patents are fine, because there aren't a large mass of people that have the means, funding, or time to devote to pursuing patentable inventions, and the chances of accidentaly duplicating someone elses efforts are negligable. Where software is concerned, there are a vast number of talented professionals and hobbyists working on their own projects at any given time, and the scope to re-invent the proverbial 'wheel' is likely happening all to frequently, but unknown to others. Lets hope the vote fails. Software has enough protection by virtue of being compiled into machine code, so we don't need intellectual software patents as well.

Well the proposition made by the Irish presidency was the most pro-software-patent project up to date. They've really been paying attention to smaller companies instead of Microsoft & the likes...:rolleyes:

European Council Approves Software Patents

It's not really amazing when you look at the list of sponsors for the Irish Presidency -> EU sponsorship