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UK Takes One More Step Towards Software Patents
from the can-bilski-cross-the-pond? dept
As we eagerly await the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) ruling in the
Bilski case -- which could greatly cut back on the ability of the US Patent Office to
grant software and business model patents, it looks Europe may be moving in the opposite
direction. We had earlier reported on a ruling in the UK which said that the UK Patent
Office had gone too far in tossing out a Symbian patent application because it was
software. Now, a UK appeals court has agreed with the earlier ruling, effectively
saying that Symbian can, in fact, patent software in the UK, despite earlier policies that
did not allow software patents.
The reasoning behind the ruling is a little odd, as it seems mostly based on aligning UK
patent rules with the rest of Europe's. However, that doesn't mean that the ruling
actually makes sense or does anything towards promoting innovation (and, plenty of recent
studies show quite clearly that software patents appear to do exactly the opposite). This
is definitely bad news for the software industry in the UK, which will now find more
tollbooths to deal with, and more patent thickets to pick through. Money is going to be
wasted going after legal fights, rather than on research, development and actually serving
customers.
