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EU Parliament rejects software patents

19 February 2005 5:49 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 5 comments

The European Parliament has unanimously rejected the implementation of software patents despite heavy pressure from some of the worlds leading corporate software companies including Microsoft. If the request is approved by the European Commission, the proposal will be sent back to the EU for initial review, effectively restarting the legislative process. Software patents proposals have been met with opposition in the EU from member states and protesters.

Polish representatives twice rejected its adoption, while Spain and the Netherlands have supported a restart. In Brussels on Thursday, hundreds of protesters showed up to try to convince the lawmakers to drop the proposal entirely. Major software companies such as Microsoft make a habit out of filing enormous amounts of software patents in the U.S. to ensure they can keep themselves at the top of the software industry. If the European Commission withdraws the bill, it cannot be reintroduced for two years.

Source:
Betanews

Permalink to this article

EU Software Patent bill thrown out (6 July 2005)

Software Patents: European Union votes for restart (3 February 2005)

Open source leaders slam software patents (3 February 2005)

Denmark to join Poland opposition to the EU directive on software patents (1 February 2005)

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Discuss this article!
daemonzx6 (Senior Member) 19 February 2005 14:24
Way to go, Europe! [ + quote]
chek16 (Newbie) 20 February 2005 9:59
Commercially based patent laws stifle innovation. This needs to be made clear to the US corporations driving this 'rights issue' who have benefited from the public domain in ways they are too greedy to see. [ + quote]
daemonzx6 (Senior Member) 20 February 2005 21:54
Yeah, the US has some major problems understanding things like that, such as their claims that P2P stifles creativity, when many independant artists use P2P to distribute their material. [ + quote]
bzboarder (Member) 21 February 2005 23:55
its good to see that EU parliament members cannot be as easily influenced by multi-billion dollar corporations like micro$oft as the US law makers are. hopefully they will continue to keep an elightened view on the subject and not fall pray to multinational coporations. [ + quote]
malato (Newbie) 28 February 2005 9:50
just Hope they'll hold this line for evermore............ [ + quote]