EU & software patents

[Harry Powell]

Hi

Since this has provoked some discussion here before, I thought that this
might be of interest.

Here's the URL of a report from the CORDIS news service regarding 
decision of the European Council of Ministers decision on software 
patents, with a brief abstract;

http://dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?CALLER=NHP_EN_NEWS&ACTION=D&SESSION=&RCN=EN_RCN$

"After software developers, computer scientists and small businesses
complained that the proposed measures would allow software patents to be  
dominated by large corporations, the European Parliament made changes to  
the proposal. The majority of the changes were aimed at maintaining the
status quo and keeping software beyond the reach of patents.

"The European Council vote, however, removes many of those changes. 'The  
text that was approved is very close to the original Commission proposal,'
said a spokesperson for the UK's Department of Trade and Industry."

The CoM's press release is available as a PDF at

http://ue.eu.int/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/intm/80522.pdf

Harry
-- 
Dr Harry Powell, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology,
MRC Centre, Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2 2QH

See http://www.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/harry  for Mosflm, BCA and
crystal growing details