Out-Law / Your Daily Need-To-Know

A proposal for a software patent directive, which will be submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and subsequent decision on 1st September, has incited protesters to stage a rally outside the Brussels building on Wednesday.

"The directive proposal as prepared by Arlene McCarthy MEP would impose US-style unlimited patentability of algorithms and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping," claims Benjamin Henrion, who is heading a local organisational team with the backing of a coalition of organisations representing 2000 software companies and 160,000 individuals, mostly software professionals.

The proposal would, according to the organisers, "legalise thousands of logic patents that have been granted by the European Patent Office against the letter and spirit of the law, making if impossible for national courts to continue to revoke these patents".

But supporters of the proposed Directive may dismiss this as sensationalism because the draft wording maintains a general prohibition on software programs as such and, at least in theory, forbids business method patents.

We are processing your request. \n Thank you for your patience. An error occurred. This could be due to inactivity on the page - please try again.