✦ LIBER ✦

EC DRAFT PATENT DIRECTIVE: “I WOULDN’T START FROM HERE IF I WERE YOU” — INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION FOR COMPUTER SOFTWARE IN EUROPE AND THE PROPOSED NEW DIRECTIVE ON COMPUTER-IMPLEMENTED INVENTIONS

✍ Scribed by Trevor Cook

Publisher: Elsevier Science
Year: 2002
Tongue: English
Weight: 88 KB
Volume: 18
Category: Article
ISSN: 0267-3649
DOI: 10.1016/s0267-3649(02)00513-7

No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.

✦ Synopsis

Everyone agrees that computer software should be protected by intellectual property. But there is no consensus as to how much protection there should be, and by what means it should be given. Copyright seems to protect too little, patents are thought to protect too much, and we have gone too far along our present path even to consider any sort of "sui generis" protection, such as was suggested in the early days of the debate. This article explores the controversies associated with the issue of 'patents for software' and the most recent proposal for a directive coming from the European Commission.