SOFTWARE PATENTS: THE CAMPAIGN FOR CREATIVITY SPEAKS

The IPKat has received this little note from the Campaign for Creativity:

EU Governments endorse continued patentability of computer-implemented inventions

London – 7 March 2005 The EU’s Competitiveness Council has formally agreed its Common Position endorsing the continued patentability of Computer Implemented Inventions this morning.

The Directive will now return to the Parliament for a Second Reading.

Campaign for Creativity director, Simon Gentry, has said supporters of the continued patentability of CI inventions will today be relieved that European Governments are going to support and defend its innovative high-tech industries.

“The Directive explicitly states that software itself will not be patentable, but inventions that use software will be. The Directive’s objective has always been to ensure there is a clear legal framework in place to support the existing practice of the European Patent Office.

“It has been a frustrating period for our supporters who vehemently believe arguments against the Directive have been deeply misleading, and that the debate has been subverted into an anti-patent debate.

The European Parliament now has to consider whether it really wants to be responsible for stripping Europe’s innovative high-tech companies of their patent protection just as other parts of the world, notably India and China are introducing CII patents to encourage and protect their innovators”,

he said.

The Campaign for Creativity also believe the outcome of this morning’s meeting was the result of the Directive being heard in the appropriate Council meeting, following a series of objections and delays in the Agricultural and Fisheries Council late last year.

The Second Reading in the European Parliament on the Directive will need to take place within the next three months.

The IPKat says, all possible links pertaining to this subject must surely have been exhausted by now.