On Fri, May 21, 2004 at 12:40:00PM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, Ian Clarke thought:
Conor Daly wrote:
The status quo AIUI is that computer software patents are not allowed but that it still requires fighting existing wrongly granted ones so that we are currently in the position of having swpats...
AFAIK the current situation is that many software patents have been granted, but because they are against the letter and spirit of current EU law, they aren't worth the paper they are written on (ie. it isn't whether the patent has been granted that really matters, but whether it is enforcible). This is untidy but better than patents being explicitly permissible.
but it still carries the possibility of a legal threat which might cause a cave-in.
Conor