Software industry safe again
have some sensible and informed chaps on board. The Computer Implemented
Inventions Directive was thrown out with a 648 to 14 majority and acknowledged by
politicians as not beneficial to anyone. At face value, it hardly seemed like a
particularly sinister proposal; it was designed to provide increased patent
protection for software used to realise inventions and the systems in mind were
things like CAT scanners, ABS brakes and so on. I guess suspicions must have
been raised when companies like microsoft started to jump on the bandwagon and the
bigger picture came to light. The passing of this bill would have had
wide-spread connotations for small firms and open-source developers and was seen as an opportunity for more business process patents such as the Amazon One-Click system to come into effect; the implications of this would have been devastating. News of the bill’s rejection means that there is an ongoing scope
for the ‘little-guy’ to make his/her mark on the web without too many legal
restrictions benefiting the big companies unfairly.
via BBC News
