EU Software Patents

[Armin Herbert]

Hi Jeff,


On 25-Nov-00 Jeff Davies wrote:

> I just saw on www.linuxtoday.com that all 20 EU member states had voted
> against software patents. Hopefully this is true, and the borg are
> banished for a couple of years at the very least. Any comments/news??


The story you've read is only partly correct; in fact, they didn't vote
yet. They ("they" are all part-taking countries of the European Patent
Convention, except Austria, Liechtenstein and Switzerland) did just come
to the agreement to not allow Software Patents.

A decision of the EU (meaning, the European Comission (20 members) is
expected on Dec, 15. The European Comission wants to see some "expert"
report (meaning, statements from the business) first.

As a summary we can say that Europe will be free of software patents,
that's right :-)





Armin.