FFII: EU Parliament Votes for Real Limits on Patentability

“The day before the vote, CEC Commissioner Bolkestein had
threatened that the Commission and the Council would withdraw the
directive proposal and hand the questions back to the national
patent administrators on the board of the European Patent Office
(EPO), should the Parliament vote for the amendments which it
supported today. ‘It remains to be seen, whether the European
Commission is committed to ‘harmonisation and clarification’ or
only to patent owner interests,’ says Hartmut Pilch, president of
FFII. ‘This is now our directive too. We must help the European
Parliament defend it.’

“‘The directive text as amended by the European Parliament
clearly excludes software patents. It hangs together incredibly
cohesively. I think we have done something amazing this week’
exclaimed James Heald, a member of the FFII/Eurolinux software
patent working group, as he put together the voted amendments into
a consolidated version…”

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