Correct. The way it is limited may of course depend on the local law. For example in Finnish patent law only "real things" can be patented, not products of human intelligence, which limits stuff like algorithms, software, business models etc. outside the scope of patentability.
There have been several instances, however, where large American companies have tried to get Europe to allow software patents. Luckily so far all of these have been blocked:
>There have been several instances, however, where large American companies have tried to get Europe to allow software patents. Luckily so far all of these have been blocked:
It's somewhat complex, but in general most of the contentious US software patents wouldn't be valid in the EU, which is why Europe has only seen a handful of software patent cases over the last decade.
Comments
Correct. The way it is limited may of course depend on the local law. For example in Finnish patent law only "real things" can be patented, not products of human intelligence, which limits stuff like algorithms, software, business models etc. outside the scope of patentability.
There have been several instances, however, where large American companies have tried to get Europe to allow software patents. Luckily so far all of these have been blocked:
http://eupat.ffii.org/log/intro/
>There have been several instances, however, where large American companies have tried to get Europe to allow software patents. Luckily so far all of these have been blocked:
Nonsense. We have software patents in Europe too.
It's somewhat complex, but in general most of the contentious US software patents wouldn't be valid in the EU, which is why Europe has only seen a handful of software patent cases over the last decade.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Euro...