[Lancaster] s/w patent vote result

[Andy Baxter]

I've just looked at the ffii's page on the result of the software patent vote 
on the 23rd. The directive has been approved, which I thought at first meant 
we'd lost, but looking at the amendments which were passed, things are 
looking a lot better, and the ffii are counting it as a victory. A lot of the 
amendments they had recommended were passed, in particular several ones which 
make it quite clear that patent law only applies to the 'use of controllable 
forces of nature' and not to 'data processing'. Also one guaranteeing that 
techniques for converting data between different computer systems cannot 
count as patent infringement.
The amendment which would have completely exempted free software from patent 
law was undecided, unfortunately.
see:
http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0924/index.en.html - ffii press release.
http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/plen0309/index.en.html - details 
of amendments passed.

What happens next, I'm not sure - I think there is some process whereby 
possibly contradictory amendments are clarified before voting on the final 
thing. As max has pointed out, the European Commission aren't bound to follow 
the advice of the meps, but at least this result will put some pressure on 
them to produce a sensible directive.

andy.

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Thanks, andy.