Praktika vale

Those who want to allow software patents say that they only wanted to codify the granting practice of the European Patent Office "in an effort to prevent that it extends even further".

The untrue part is that the legalization of software patents had any limiting effect. Without a directive that allows software patents, the European Patent Convention of 1974 would still apply. Compared to the legislative proposals that the proponents of software patents support, the European Patent Convention actually has a more limiting effect. The only way to limit patentability more than in the past is to disallow software patents in an absolutely waterproof fashion.

Apart from that, the idea of lawmaking is to define legislation that benefits the public. The objective should not be to provide legal backing to any form of questionable conduct. The European Patent Office has granted many software patents although the European Patent Convention of 1974 does not make software patentable. The European Union is not bound to whatever the EPO has been doing over the years but has a responsibility for Europe's economy and society.

The question is not what the European Patent Office has been doing, but what it should be doing in the interest of Europe. If the concept of legalizing someone's practice became a leading principle of lawmaking, then we'd be in trouble. In a different area but with that sort of logic, the USA could have decided to simply allow torture by military officers instead of launching an investigation and taking precautions for the future.

Click here to read about the lie that software patents did not cause many legal problems to open source and SMEs