The Software Patent Directive was rejected by the European Parliament on the 6th of July 2005, after seven years of campaigning by people in FSFE and other organisations - most notably, one of our associate organisations, FFII. This was a monumental victory and displays the legislative competence of the Free Software community. However, the struggle is not over. The future of software patents is not decided in Europe, and the problem is growing in other parts of the World.
More specifically, the software patent problem may return via initiatives such as the Community Patent or the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA). More information and a description of how it may come back is in this August 2006 blog entry: The Future of the Patents Battle.
FSFE has submitted its response to the European Commission's questionnaire titled "On the patent system in Europe".
After years of struggle, the European Parliament finally rejected the software patent directive with 648 of 680 votes.
One week before the second reading vote by the European Parliament, FSFE sent a simplified explanation of the core areas of confusion. This was delivered in six languages which were produced on short notice by the FSFE Translation Team.
The Free Software Foundation Europe has published, on June 28th 2005, the Karlsruhe Memorandum against software patents. This memorandum collected more than 200 signatures at this year's GNU/LinuxTag conference in Karlsruhe. Citing scientific evidence, the text argues that software patents in Europe will hurt jobs and innovation. Among the supporters are leaders of some of Europe's biggest trade union groups. All MEPs received a copy of this.
The Free Software Foundation Europe is actively working against the introduction of software patents in Europe. Software patents create the following problems.
To understand how patents work, it is important to realise that they have almost nothing in common with copyright. While Copyright is granted on the the work of an author, such as a computer program, patents are granted on ideas that could be used inside a computer program. So when thinking of Patents, think of "symphony combining wind and string instruments" and not "Beethoven's 2nd symphony."
For background information about patents, software patents, and the difference between patents and copyright please read our background page.