Thursday

28th Mar 2024

MEPs back new rules for computer-related patents

The European Parliament approved yesterday (24 September) new controversial legislation that governs patents for computer-related inventions.

The main thrust of the new directive is to ensure that patents for computer-related inventions are granted on the same basis everywhere in the European Union.

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Currently, the patents may be approved by the European Patent Office (EPO), but not actually enforced in all EU member states.

Research

The vote on the patents followed an enormous lobbying campaign. Smaller companies argued that new patent rules would mean they would have to hire many lawyers, bigger ones believe that common rules help to justify the investments to expensive research.

Critics, however, believe that MEPs restricted patents too much.

Commissioner Frits Bolkestein, responsible for the proposal, argued that some of the amendments "could potentially render some [patents] totally worthless," according to the FT.

Member states to approve

MEPs agreed that to deserve a patent, the technical contribution has to be new, non-obvious, and susceptible of industrial application.

Computer-implemented inventions cover such devices as mobile phones, intelligent household appliances, engine control devices, machine tools and computer programme-related inventions.

The so-called directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions needs to be approved now by all EU memberstates.

Hard talk on software

Billions of euro and thousands of jobs and businesses are at stake at the European Parliament today, as members vote on the controversial software patent Directive. The debate has been ferocious and the result is still difficult to predict.

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