Judging from the number of Europeans listed in the HEVC patent pool (see https://www.mpegla.com/wp-content/uploads/avc-att1.pdf), I suspect that software patents are very much a thing in Europe. They just have to have the same kind of fudges that US software patents have to have (especially post-Alice).
> Sometimes I am grateful that I live in Europe where software patents are not a thing.
Unfortunately they are. Software patents are in theory forbidden, but... you can patent a broader patent which will also cover the software variant.
Example: You want to patent the linked list. Obviously you can't do that in Europe, this is software patent (this is also an obvious patent, but there are ways to hide the obviousness through legalese language). But you can patent a "method for linking an abstract document to another one through a well-identified numerical identifier". This isn't per se a software patent, as you could have a real-world implementation (think of Choose Your Own Adventure books), but then you _also_ patented the software version.
This is how IP experts claims that "there are no software patents in Europe" despite accepting tens of thousands of them.
1. The laws say "not patentable" (European Patent Convention Art. 52(2)(c) which you find also in the national patent laws as it is harmonized by the EPC members) with exeptions that this means only the thing (software) _as such_ (EPC Art 52(3)), so a patent involving an apparatus and software/algorithms can be valid if the software provides non-obvious technical improvement -- which is the legal domain of patents. Pseudo-technical stuff like "it's technical because it runs on a computer and therefore has to move bits around for which we need electrical signals which are technical" should make it void, as technical means something with natural forces, e.g. a machine doing stuff in the real world -- in which case the software part makes it technical better. Software used for other non-technical stuff in the technical apparatus (like making more economic, searching/displaying information, etc.) also should not count, as it is non-technical.
2. However EPA practice seems to be more lax then the courts regarding the technicality requirements. And with the masses of patents being granted and only those go to the court where two parties see themselves in conflict, there are many already and they are getting more
More Details on Wikipedia.
And guess what?
Even if your company does not participate in this shitshow in Europe as the legal situation is _somewhat_ clear (as long they don't want to change the law again, like another commenter mentioned: there were several initiatives). If it is big enough to care about patents at all, it is probably also big enough to be doing business in USA and plays the game there, even if only for defensive purposes, as this phenomenon is even more widespread/serious there.
So there you can have it all: be an European employee, living in Europe, working for an European Software Company (doing nothing technical) in Europe and still involved in this mess, even as a (US) patent holder. (The good news: for successful patent registrations they have to pay you extra per law, at least in Germany.)
Just search on Google Patents for patents from (big) European Software Companies. You'll find a lot, but mostly registered in the US, at least from my sampling. And the stuff you'll find is not only from the colleagues in the US subsidiaries.
(Edit: Italics Formatting, Fix: does-->does not / Delete+Repost actually, as it did not save the update.)
Stay alert, then. Software patents went close to become real in 2002, and come back regularly since then, pushed by a variety of lobbies and particularly large US software houses (Microsoft, Adobe, Oracle, IBM and friends).
So far they've been shot down every time by the Parliament. But the EU Patent Office, the EU administration in general and the Commission are all strongly in favor of software patents.
jcranmer|4 years ago
xroche|4 years ago
Unfortunately they are. Software patents are in theory forbidden, but... you can patent a broader patent which will also cover the software variant.
Example: You want to patent the linked list. Obviously you can't do that in Europe, this is software patent (this is also an obvious patent, but there are ways to hide the obviousness through legalese language). But you can patent a "method for linking an abstract document to another one through a well-identified numerical identifier". This isn't per se a software patent, as you could have a real-world implementation (think of Choose Your Own Adventure books), but then you _also_ patented the software version.
This is how IP experts claims that "there are no software patents in Europe" despite accepting tens of thousands of them.
throwaway_67ad4|4 years ago
1. The laws say "not patentable" (European Patent Convention Art. 52(2)(c) which you find also in the national patent laws as it is harmonized by the EPC members) with exeptions that this means only the thing (software) _as such_ (EPC Art 52(3)), so a patent involving an apparatus and software/algorithms can be valid if the software provides non-obvious technical improvement -- which is the legal domain of patents. Pseudo-technical stuff like "it's technical because it runs on a computer and therefore has to move bits around for which we need electrical signals which are technical" should make it void, as technical means something with natural forces, e.g. a machine doing stuff in the real world -- in which case the software part makes it technical better. Software used for other non-technical stuff in the technical apparatus (like making more economic, searching/displaying information, etc.) also should not count, as it is non-technical.
2. However EPA practice seems to be more lax then the courts regarding the technicality requirements. And with the masses of patents being granted and only those go to the court where two parties see themselves in conflict, there are many already and they are getting more
More Details on Wikipedia.
And guess what?
Even if your company does not participate in this shitshow in Europe as the legal situation is _somewhat_ clear (as long they don't want to change the law again, like another commenter mentioned: there were several initiatives). If it is big enough to care about patents at all, it is probably also big enough to be doing business in USA and plays the game there, even if only for defensive purposes, as this phenomenon is even more widespread/serious there.
So there you can have it all: be an European employee, living in Europe, working for an European Software Company (doing nothing technical) in Europe and still involved in this mess, even as a (US) patent holder. (The good news: for successful patent registrations they have to pay you extra per law, at least in Germany.)
Just search on Google Patents for patents from (big) European Software Companies. You'll find a lot, but mostly registered in the US, at least from my sampling. And the stuff you'll find is not only from the colleagues in the US subsidiaries.
(Edit: Italics Formatting, Fix: does-->does not / Delete+Repost actually, as it did not save the update.)
unknown|4 years ago
[deleted]
wazoox|4 years ago
So far they've been shot down every time by the Parliament. But the EU Patent Office, the EU administration in general and the Commission are all strongly in favor of software patents.
pkaye|4 years ago