The European Parliament approves the patentability of the software

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Wednesday September 24, 2003, 14h14  
  
P H O T O S 
The policy
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The European Parliament approves the patentability of the software 

STRASBOURG (Reuters) - the European Parliament approved Wednesday the draft Directive very disputed on the patentability of the software inventions, after having amended it to limit its field of application to the "true inventions" having a technical range.


The text, presented in first reading, was approved by 364 votes, against 153 and 33 abstentions.


It specifies the European Commission proposal, which establishes a distinction between the pure, famous software nonpatentable in European right, and the "inventions implemented by computer", which would become it, with the proviso of presenting a technical projection, likely to receive an industrial application.


The text of origin was considered to be "fuzzy" and "ambiguous" by considerable members of Parliament who feared that it too largely does not open the way with the taking out of patents on the software, with the risk to constitute a brake with l"innovation in this key field of the economy.


EurodИputИs added a paragraph specifying that a "invention implemented by computer (a software) is not regarded as contributing a technical share only because it implies the use of a computer".


In light, so that a data-processing program is patentable, it is not enough that it is new, it is necessary still that it allows a technical innovation independently of its own execution.


Another amendment specifies that the use of a patented technique is not regarded as a counterfeit if it is necessary to ensure the communication between various systems or data-processing networks.


It acts for eurodИputИs to prevent the monopoly which certain giants of the software could exert on the data-processing networks, Microsoft being named but probably not aimed.


The European Parliament being a colegislator in this field which concerns the domestic market, the text must now be examined by the Council of Ministers, before returning in second reading to Strasbourg.


The European police chief charged with the domestic market, Fritz Bolkestein, had warned eurodИputИs, Tuesday at the time of the debate, on the "unacceptable" character of a certain number of amendments deposited.