Summary: European Advocate General and a UK government report get involved in the debate

FOLLOWING the embarrassing news about the EU Patent, sane lawyers such as Carlo Piana point out that the "Advocate General @ ECJ says that monopolize an idea is detrimental to technological progress and industrial development. #swpats torpedoed"

It is too premature to say that they are torpedoed because patent lawyers work hard to change practices in Europe, along with their clients and their lobbyists. Here is more about that and some thoughts from Dr. Glyn Moody, who writes: "One of the many hopeful signs that the Hargreaves team knew what they were talking about was the recognition that patent thickets were an increasing danger in many fields, notably that of mobile technology. One of the actions flowing from the report was to investigate this area further, and now the UK government has released its report"

Here is a good summary from Slashdot:

bhagwad writes "The EU continues to ooze common sense as a court insists that software functions themselves cannot be copyrighted. Drawing a box or moving cursor are examples. To quote: 'If it were accepted that a functionality of a computer program can be protected as such, that would amount to making it possible to monopolize ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development.'" Note that this is a "non-binding opinion by Yves Bot, an advocate-general at the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice," and that the court "will rule on the case next year."

Over at Reuters, it is stated that "[t]he case is seen as crucial for the European computer industry and could determine how companies create products that can work with rival services without breaching copyright rules.

"The non-binding opinion by Yves Bot, an advocate-general at the Luxembourg-based EU Court of Justice (ECJ), is in line with a verdict reached by the High Court of England and Wales in July last year. ECJ judges will rule on the case next year."

The remark from the FFII is that:

Copyright puts software authors in the driving seat. Why do others drop bricks on the highway?

Here are some remarks on the reports [1, 2]. ⬆