Software Patents Off The Agenda In The EU
from the who-needs-'em? dept
This isn't a huge surprise given events of the last month, but the question of software patents has been removed from the agenda of the latest EU Council meeting, at the request of the Polish representative. It sounds like, hopefully, this issue is dying out in the EU, though, it's likely that supporters will keep pushing for it next year.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Hopefully?
My suggestions are as follows:
- Do not allow software patents that just replicate existing real-world items (shopping carts, for example)
- Do not allow companies to buy patents and sue for infringement if they aren't creating products that use the patent.
- Disallow business model patents entirely (unless they are truly unique).
- Improve checking for prior art and obviousness.
Software generally does something, just like a physical device can, and genuine innovation should be able to be patented.[ link to this | view in chronology ]