New EU-Wide Patent System Approved 75
Dupple writes "There's a two page article over on IT World detailing a new patent system passed by the European Parliament that will unify the patent process across most countries in the EU. Quoting: 'Parliament adopted all three proposed regulations needed to form the new patent system on Tuesday: the regulation on a Unitary Patent, the language regime and the formation of a new unified patent court system. Not all European Union member states want a part in the new system: Italy and Spain refused to participate, although they may join at any time. The new system will cut the cost of obtaining a patent in the participating countries by up to 80 percent, the Parliament said. The patents will be made available in English, French and German and applications will have to be made in one of those three languages. Not everyone was pleased with the newly adopted regulation though. MEPs opposing the adopted text are concerned the new system is going to be bad for innovation and business, and by voting for the text, the Parliament is giving away powers, they said. The new regulation "means the European Parliament will abdicate all its political powers to an organization ... that is outside of the E.U.," said Christian Engström, Pirate Party member of parliament, adding that he still wanted a European patent as long as it did not hamper innovation as he believes the proposal in its current form does.'"
FSFE responds (Score:5, Informative)
European Parliament adopts deeply flawed unitary patent, gives up power over innovation policy [fsfe.org]
Re:So what's the word on software? (Score:4, Informative)
Anything that can be distilled as "same as X, but on/with/in a computer" needs to go. That covers just about everything we object to.
Re:So what's the word on software? (Score:5, Informative)
Software patents have got to go. And with them, inventions that "can be implemented in software" also need to go. I saw nothing in either link talking about software patents.
From the scarce information in the articles (and the FSFE response linked by this comment [slashdot.org] I conclude that it basically gives the European Patent Office the power to decide what is patentable. Which almost certainly means software patents will be possible.