The German Parliament has passed a joint motion against
the growing trend of patent offices to grant patents on software programs. The
resolution on “Secure Competition and Innovation in the software development,”
obliges the German government to take steps to ensure that software is protected
by copyright only and no additional patent protection is granted.
Here's
what it says about the EPO [.pdf]:
in practice patents are being granted -
in particular by the European Patent Office (EPO) - with effects on computer
programs in which the patenting of pure data processing ideas are presented
nominally as "technical procedures" or "technical devices" with explicit claims
made on these processes as found in computer programs. The number of
software-related patents granted by the EPO alone is estimated in the high
five-figure range.
The motion rightly notes the dangers of software patents
for developers:
This situation means for software developers considerable
legal uncertainty: the abstractness of the claims has the result that a
software-related patent affects all individual implementations of the protected
solution in concrete computer programs. Computer programs that contain the
patented technique may not be used commercially without the consent of the
patent holder.
Interestingly, the solution proposed is to rely on copyright
to protect programs not patents. The logic is that copyright protects the
particular implementations of an idea, whereas patents monopolise the idea
itself, thus preventing others from using it freely. Even better, the motion
explicitly calls for open source to be protected.
The entire
article is worth reading. As to why I take solace in it is that New Zealand
appears at best reluctant to embrace