The Proposal for a software patent directive, which will be 
submitted to the European Parliament for plenary debate and 
subsequent decision on September 1st, is giving rise to 
another wave of protests.

"The directive proposal as prepared by Arlene McCarthy MEP 
would impose US-style unlimited patentability of algorithms 
and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping" 
says Benjamin Henrion, who is heading a local 
organisational team with the backing of a coalition of 
organisations representing 2000 software companies and 
160,000 individuals, mostly software professionals. 

The proposal would, according to the organisers, "legalise 
thousands of logic patents that have been granted by the 
European Patent Office against the letter and spirit of the 
law, making if impossible for national courts to continue 
to revoke these patents". This would protect the interests 
of patent holders and patent lawyers, i.e. the people whom 
the Commission called "an economic majority", discarding 
the evidence against software patents provided by 94% of 
the respondents to its consultation on software patents.