VICTORY FOR THE 'SOFTWARE DINOSAURS'.

• Position: European Parliament - Patentability of computer-implemented inventions - Brief Article

Members of the European Parliament's judicial affairs committee appear to have been easily swayed by the arguments put forward by the "dinosaurs of the software market", as the Greens have called them. In a second reading of the proposed Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions on June 20, the committee's MEPs rejected the majority of the amendments designed to reduce the scope of the text and which would have left it substantially different from the common Council position. "This vote offers pointless support to the dinosaurs of the software market. The conservatives and the liberals have weakened the proposed text to such an extent that it is now full of legal uncertainties. If Parliament backs this decision, it will allow the major software companies to control the European market and sideline both smaller players and potential competitors, and help to line the pockets of patent lawyers," wrote Eva Lichtenberger (Greens, member of the judicial affairs committee) and Monica Frassoni...