Complete with gormeless pro-patent rhetoric, timesonline.co.uk reports that, following the UK IPO's complaint against the High Court's pro-swpat ruling, the UK Court of Appeal has rejected the IPO's appeal and has instead agreed with the High Court that, for "complex software", software patents are valid:
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article4907993.ece We previously saw a post-Nov-2009 swpat debate as an inevitability that we'd have to prepare for whether we want it or not. With this ruling, a new EU-level legislative proposal is becoming something we might even push for. (Nov 2009 is when a new European Commission will be chosen. Commissioner McCreevy said he'd make no further legislative proposals regarding swpats during his term, so there's a good chance that something will be launched when he is replaced.) I put the relevent part of the European Patent Convention online here with some links: http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/why_european_software_patents_are_legally_invalid -- Ciarán O'Riordan, +32 477 36 44 19, http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ Support free software, join FSFE's Fellowship: http://fsfe.org Recent blog entries: http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/why_european_software_patents_are_legally_invalid http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/eu_states_to_discuss_internet_filtering http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/links_rockbox_gnu_releases_and_ffii_s_petition http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/new_monthly_feature_fellowship_interviews _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
