The EU Parliament sought to rememdy the “technical contribution” clause by adding amendments to the directive to define software as a field of technology that should not be patentable. However, the present text of the directive ignores these amendments.

The UK government firmly supports the present text. Lord Sainsbury, the minister responsible, was confronted last December by a roomful of developers who strongly contested his assertion that the directive imposes limits on software patenting. The minister agreed to set up a series of workshops to attempt to clarify the “technical contribution” element. The workshops have now taken place, and the UKPO report is at http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/ippd/issues/cii-workshops.htm, with participants’ reports at http://wiki.ffii.org/UkpoWorkshops0503En.

I personally feel that the present text of the directive is unlikely to be amended a second time without a massive lobbying of MEPs by free software developers (see http://www.ffii.org). If the directive becomes law without further amendments (some time around mid-2005) it will allow almost any software to be patentable, without the patent holder even having to actually write code!

John Ingleby

Interesting article by John Naughton in this week’s Observer outlining the dangers (as he sees them) of this directive.
See John Naughton on proposed EE Software Patent directive or try suggested text of letter to your MEP