Monday 26 February 2007

Software Patents in the UK

Tony Blair had been busy answering petitions on the No 10 website recently and he has just replied to the one on software patents. The response is short, straight to the point and says that no patents should exist for inventions which make advances lying solely in the field of software. So in theory it's all good and it means that software patents are unenforceable in the UK. Of course, there will be a grey area for everything that is not purely software or depends on particular hardware. Mobile phones come to mind as such an example.

This is a step in the right direction. Let's hope a European directive or a future government doesn't contradict it now.

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