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 Software patent bill thrown out

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Date posted: 07/07/2005

After many months of concern, European politicians have finally binned a bill that was designed to bring European sowtware law in line with the US system so that business concepts and software uses could be patented.

The European Parliament voted 648 to 14 to reject the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive.

The bill was reportedly rejected because, politicians said, it pleased no-one in its current form.

Responding to the rejection the European Commission said it would not draw up or submit any more versions of the original proposal.

If it had gone ahead, uses of software rather than the actual code of the software could have been patented. Examples include in the US, Amazon?s system of allowing you to purchase products with a mouse click.

The rejection looks like the end for the bill as the European Parliament will also move to stop the version of the bill that has already been approved in the 25 EU member nations becoming law.

"Patents will continue to be handled by national patent offices ... as before, which means different interpretations as to what is patentable, without any judiciary control by the European Court of Justice," said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, representing the EU head office at the vote.

More than 1,700 Europe-wide companies, represented by the Free Information Infrastructure UK, joined the plea for the European Union to reject any law which patents software.

See the full Story via external site: news.bbc.co.uk



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