"Simon Gentry of the Campaign for Creativity and Joff Wild, Editor of Intellectual Asset Management magazine take issue with technology analyst Bill Thompson's recent column in which he argued that a new European directive could put software writers at risk of legal action.
'The directive applies to computer implemented inventions As someone who clearly believes passionately in innovation, Bill Thompson should take the time to read the draft European Directive on Computer Implemented Inventions.
If he does, he will see that, far from being a charter designed to allow American multinationals to run roughshod over the rights of small European companies, its effect will be to even up a playing field that at the moment is heavily skewed in favour of the strong and the rich.
To start with, let us be clear about one thing. This is not a directive that would allow pure software patents.
In fact, it explicitly forbids them. Instead, it offers patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, computer implemented inventions.
And, to reassure Bill even further, this is nothing new in Europe. So far, thousands of such inventions have been given patent protection by the European Patent Office.
[...]
The alternative to the Directive, of course, is not the abolition of patents for computer implemented inventions, but a continuation of the current situation, which is heavily weighted in favour of those big multinationals that Bill is so worried about. [...]'"
One of the very few media articles not cluttered by myths and misrepresentations caused by the outrageous disinformation campaign masterminded by the FFII e.V. and by nosoftwarepatents.com.
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Dipl.-Phys. Axel H Horns is Patentanwalt (German Patent Attorney),
European Patent Attorney as well as European Trade Mark Attorney. In particular, he is Member of:
BBC web site:
