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July 6th 2005 - The EU parliament finally has rejected the directive of 'in computers implemented inventions', called the software-patents directive in popular language. Of the 729 present parliament members, 648 voted against the directive, 14 witheld, and 18 voted in favour of it.
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Europarliament reporter Michel ROCARD (PES, France) said all political parties decided to reject the common position which would probably enable software patents, reached a while ago by the ministers of economic policies of the different countries.
Since it seemed impossible to reach a majority concerning the contents of the directive, the political parties chose to reject the directive, because that was the only solution supported by a majority of the 729 present Europarliament members.
Many EP's (Europarliament members) were furious about the way the ministers of the separate countries dealt with the issue. The ministers didn't negotiate with the parliament, and the way the directive was adopted wasn't very democratically.
All speakers agreed the EPO (European Patent Office in Munich, Germany) doesn't function very well, since patents are granted which shouldn't have been granted in first place. Also, the EPO lacks control by democratic agencies. Many speakers also agreed, the SMB's and innovation would be the victims of software patents. Also, some speakers spoke about the lobbying of big companies, like those represented in EICTA, CompTIA and so on. Eweek even reported, there are twenty to thirty full time lobbyers, in favour of the software patents, in Brussels (Belgium), which is the home of the European Parliament most of the time.
Greatest problem was the defining of the word 'technical'; when is an innovation technical, and when is it pure software? Because the EP's couldn't agree, the patent practices aren't harmonized among the EU-countries because of this vote, and it's probably up to the separate EU-countries to decide how they handle the issue now.
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