Dramatic Changes Proposed for EU Patent Proposal

European parliamentarians have put forward a list of more than 200 amendments to the European Union's proposed legislation on IT patents, which, if approved, would dramatically change the character of the controversial proposal.

At stake is whether the EU will bring in more permissive rules on software patents, bringing it into line with patent practices in the United States and Japan. Currently, patents on pure software and business processes are not enforceable, making it impossible for large companies to bring their patent arsenals into play in the region.

The system is seen as creating competitive advantages for the EU's open-source economy, and for EU-based IT companies, which don't have to worry about the overhead associated with patents on software. Open-source projects are considered especially vulnerable to software patents, and open-source leaders such as Linux Torvalds have spoken out against the current directive.

Read the rest of this eWEEK story:

Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in ExtremeTech.