Goodbye Software Patents (For now)

[KernelPanic]

EU Parliament bins software patent bill

In brief The European Parliament has voted by a massive majority to reject the software patents directive, formally known as the Directive on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions. The vote to scrap the bill was passed by a margin of 648 votes to 14, with 18 abstentions.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) says the rejection is a logical response to the Commission and Council's refusal to take parliament's will into consideration.

Anti-software patent campaigner Florian Muller argues that today's vote was prompted by events back in February, when the parliament's committee of legal affairs, JURI, voted for a restart of the legislative process. That vote was flatly ignored by the European Commission, which decided instead to move on to a second reading.

"A nightmare is over," Muller says. "Next time around, let's honestly discuss the pros and cons of pure software patents, and then we can get a great directive that won't die a dishonourable death like this."

According to Muller, MEPs are divided about what should happen next. The Conservative group has called for a news proposal from the Commission, while the Greens would like the parliamentary vote to be interpreted as a final rejection of the bill.

"Before any next step, we need a period of reflection, and a proper economic policy debate. It is not like we've accomplished everything here. Ideally, we want a good directive, but at this stage no directive was the best directive we could hope for," he told us.

[Kintaro]

Well thats mighty good news.

[Refalm]

Good news. This way, Europe can buy, use and create software cheaper and more effeciently.

The greatest example of this is the city of Munchen. This German city considered switching to open source software, litterally saving thousands of euros on computer software, but was held back by the software patent law.

They can now safely throw out expensive licenses from Microsoft.

[Kintaro]

Bye bye patents

Bye bye expensive

Hello open-source

I think I

[piratePenguin]

... Are software-patents in in Australia?

[Kintaro]

I don't think so.

[Lord C]

Bye bye patents

Bye bye expensive

Hello open-source

I think I

[Kintaro]

Its a brilliant tune.