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Wednesday, July 06, 2005

EU Directive on Patentability of CII is Dead.

The Register writes:

"The European Parliament has voted by a massive majority to reject the software patents directive, formally known as the Directive on the Patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions. The vote to scrap the bill was passed by a margin of 648 votes to 14, with 18 abstentions. [...]"

This means that patents on computer-implemented inventions continue to be validly granted by Patent Offices and enforced by the competent Authorities under the respective applicable national or supra-national laws.

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I think you mean 'continue to be invalidly granted'.

The EPO can now no longer claim that there is political or public support for their interpretation of Article 52 EPC.

It will be interesting to see what happens next. People can continue to buy CII patents but they will remain difficult to enforce and thus have little value in most of Europe. This does not seen to me to be a coherent or sustainable situation - we shall see.

# posted by Wookey : 06 July, 2005 17:20