EU parliament kills software patents law
07-07-2005
by Ciaran Buckley

The European Parliament has voted by a huge majority to reject a bill which would have created a single EU-wide patent process for software-related inventions.

The assembly voted by 648 to 14, with 18 abstentions, to reject the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive.

The directive would have given EU-wide patent protection for computerised inventions, which range from computer programs that control medical devices to the software embedded in electronic gadgets. It would also have provided patent protection for computer programmes, but only in the context where the software is part of an invention. The software itself would have continued to have been covered by copyright law.

"While the adoption of the Common Position would have been the ideal, no legislation is better than legislation that would have damaged Ireland's competitiveness," said ICT Ireland, a lobby group for many of Ireland's high-tech multinationals and supporter of software patents. "What we are left with now is the status quo and a clean canvas on which to work in future."

The directive had been supported by the European pro-patent lobby, which felt that the directive would encourage investment in R&D in Europe, since innovators and investors would be confident that their investment would be protected throughout the EU.

Supporters of the bill also said that a community-wide patent process would reduce the cost of making patent claims, which are much higher than in the US or Japan. The directive would also have meant that patents would have been protected in European courts using a common body of law.

However, the directive was strongly opposed by anti-patent groups who felt that it would result in a small number of large corporations owning the majority of patents. These groups argued that this would lead to restrictive licensing practises which would inhibit innovation.

The European Commission, which drafted the bill, said it respected the decision and that it would not put forward any new proposed legislation in this area. The proposed law had been a key part of the Lisbon Agenda, which aims to make Europe the most competitive economic zone in the world by 2010. The legislation had already been rejected once by the European Parliament at committee level, but was resurrected following a major push from the Commission.