News UK Patent Office under fire over software report

Will it cause patent pandemonium? Or is it a step in the right directiton? ZDNet investigates:

The UK Patent Office (UKPO) has been criticised by anti-patent campaigners on Monday for an article it published last week on the software patent directive.

The article, entitled Patents & Software: Fact and Fiction explains the details of the software patents directive, a potential change to European law which some critics say could allow the widespread patenting of software in Europe.

The UKPO document states that the EU Council has agreed a text which is now due to be debated by the European Parliament. It claims that the directive is needed to stop the UK from moving towards a US-style liberal patenting regime and to clarify the law by only allowing software to be patented if it makes a 'technical contribution'.

The document goes on to explain why it believes that copyright is not enough and clarifies the "fact and fiction" about patent law, including a denial that the software patent directive would be harmful to SMEs.

But some anti-patent campaigners said they were concerned that the document was confusing and will actually misinform the public about the issues regarding software patents.

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Software patents are a nightmare. They cause nothing but trouble.

 

...Says the Firefox evangelist...

- H.

 

Er, you might want to explain that comment to me. I've gotten lost.

 

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