New attempt to establish EU Software patents

The EU Commission recently held a consultation on the Patent system in Europe.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/indprop/patent/
It covered a number of issues. One of great concern to all those activists who had successfully campaigned against the introduction of software patents, was the Commissions proposal to introduce a Community patent system ( one patent for the whole of Europe). They feared that this could be a backdoor method to introduce software patents. So the activists once again marshalled thier resources to respond to the consultation.

But the fights not over yet. I have recently been told by Florian Mueller ( one of the lead lobbyists against software patenting) that there is another backdoor method being pursued by pro software patenting companies. That is using the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA).

You can read the background on it here:

ahttp://www.no-lobbyists-as-such.com/florian-mueller-blog/epla

Cptech also submitted comments to the Commissions patent consultation.
While we oppose software patents, we sought in our response to also focus on wider principles of patent policy that apply to all areas of the economy eg the development of medicines.

A copy of our response can be found here:
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/cptechECPatconsultation-12april06.pdf