September 24, 2004
EU Software Patents directive delayed again
The Register reports that the EU's Competitiveness Council has once again returned the software patents directive for reconsideration. Among other interesting points in the article:
Cohn-Bendit said that the software regulations proposed by the Competitiveness Council on 18 June would have led to EU's economy being controlled by a small group of multi-nationals.
Oh, but ain't that the truth...
The European Parliament takes the view that strict software patents will stifle innovation among small European companies. Software would instead be covered by copyrights and algorithms and commercial methods might not be protected in any form.
That was one of the points that Plamen Tonev repeatedly stressed in his talk on software patents at the LUG-BG 2004 seminar back in May, and in my not so humble opinion this point alone should be enough to bring the whole thing to a conclusion, not "one way or another", but certainly to the scraping of both this proposed bill and any further talk on the subject.
Posted by roam at September 24, 2004 06:41 PM
