There are efforts to introduce software patents into Europe. In some cases inventions are patentable due to a combination of software and hardware. I'm sure patent officers and lawyers would love to have a similar software patent regime in Europe to the US. But by and large, software patents have been resisted in Europe, with the EU parliament opposing introduction of software patents the last time this was voted on, with the commission (which tends to be more professional lobbyist influenced) having tried to open the way for software patents.
Either fix the patent system or allow the US economy to suffer
Posted May 5, 2011 21:47 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433)
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Software patents are actually EXplicitly FORBIDDEN by the European Patent Treaty.
So unless they can get round it by claiming it's "not a pure software patent", then any software patent has been illegally issued. That doesn't stop them, though :-(