EU Rejects Software Patents Law - For Now

The BBC reports that the European Software Patents has been rejected by the European Parliament. The parliament can now request the European Commission to submit the widely despised law to another round of consultation. There is a major opposition to software patents in Europe and it seems that the main backers of the now rejected legislation are US companies rather than European software companies. The European Commission must now consider the request and it is not known if they will approve it as The Register pointed out.

Written by John McCormac on February 17th, 2005 with comments disabled.
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#1. February 17th, 2005, at 6:48 PM.

this is legislation which was drafted when the irish held the presidency, isn’t it? and - you’ll have to remind me on this - wasn’t microsoft providing some valuable sponsorship of the irish presidency at that time?

Get your own gravatar by visiting gravatar.com John McCormac
#2. February 17th, 2005, at 6:56 PM.

As far as I know, the Irish government touted this legislation despite the Irish software industry being against it. Interestingly Gates has threatened the Danes with the loss of 800 jobs for not supporting the software legislation. I guess Microsoft will have to buy all the politicians all over again if this goes back to the start.