Didou
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Taken from -> EU votes today on legalising software patents by Matt Whipp
Software developers concerned that Today the EU Council of Ministers will vote on a directive to legalise software patents in Europe, causing concern among software developers.
Many that oppose such legislation fear that the Council, which represents the governments of the EU states, will vote in favour of the current draft, as the group is made up of members of various national patent offices that are backed by big corporates.
Organisations such as the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) fear software patents will stifle innovation, particularly for SMEs which will not be able to afford the potential licence fees or the legal risk of developing new software for fear of encroaching accidentally upon a patent. Furthermore, these patents may be owned by companies that do not actually develop software at all, but simply hoard patents.
In the US, there is the bizarre situation of Forgent Networks, which claims ownership of the JPEG patent. It is simultaneously recommending the image compression format be admitted as an international standard while suing 31 companies for using it.
Last September the European Commission voted for major changes that explicitly outlawed software patents. The Council of Ministers redrafted the directive without addressing the issues raised by the Commission and explicitly including software patents, saying that some of the Commission's recommendations violated international treaties such as TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of Intellecual Property). However, this article by Jonas Maebe claims exactly the opposite is true.
The FFII claims the Council is likely to vote in favour of its draft of the directive, hoping it will be rubber stamped by EU ministers. But if the ministers want the recommendations of the European Commission considered, the FFII fears the patent administrators will try and stall the directive, allowing the national European patent offices to continue granting software patents as they are currently doing.