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Euro Software Patents Pending

“Harmonizing patent law across the European Union is seen as an important step toward lowering the barriers to internal trade. In addition, the so-called trilateral offices—the patent offices of the United States, Japan and the European Union—have met regularly since 1983, attempting to establish common standards in patent search and examination practices. Japan allows software patents, but they must be “a creation of technical ideas utilizing a law of nature.”

The next step under the European Union’s codecision procedure (.pdf) is the European Parliament’s second reading, which must begin within three months of formal delivery of the commission’s text, translated into all 20 official languages, to the Parliament.”

While this article from Wired quotes naysayers who fear Europeans will go the disastrous route Americans have taken (allowing broad patents on software for obvious inventions), it is not clear the European plan is as short sighted. Although, like any patent scheme, it does reward those with the biggest pockets (e.g. corporations) not co-operative efforts like open source software development.
URLs:

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,66938,00.html

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