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I am of the opinion that software patents stifle innovation, slow or halt progress in software design, and serve as an unjust, money-making cash cow for little effort.

The right for patents to exist is to stimulate innovation and innovation is believed to benefit the majority of the people. The stimulation of innovation is even generally believed to outweigh the negative effects of the monopoly granted. But why are patents thought to stimulate innovation?
If an individual or small enterprise makes an invention the inventor might need a bigger company to actually produce it. But if he tells about it, somebody else might just build it without giving anything back to the inventor. Thus there is no incentive to publish an invention. This is one thing patents try to change.
On the other hand, if the inventor produces the invention himself, a bigger company might take it and produce the invention as well, but sell it for a much lower price because the investment of building up a mass production is lower for a bigger company. This is the other thing patents try to prevent.
So there are good reasons to believe that patents on real inventions stimulate innovation. But with software things are different. If someone has written a piece of software he owns the copyright on that software. So he can go and sell copies of it and nobody else is allowed to do that. Not only is the software protected by copyright already, the investment of building up a mass production is zero. Copying software does not cost money. Thus there is no need to grand an additional monopoly through patents here.
Furthermore for software there is no difference between a prototype and mass production. The whole investment to be done is that of writing the code, which is something that person can do himself. If the idea how to write the code is not obvious nobody else can write a similar program as long as the source code is kept secret and only the binary versions are published.
There is absolutely no benefit of making software patentable. Therefore it should not be done.

Software patents favor litigation in detriment of innovation, defeating their legitimate purpose. They force software producers to spend on bureaucracy and lawsuits what would otherwise be spent on Research and Development. They (software patents) compromise the ability of European individuals and small companies to compete with big corporations which thus obtain a means to exert unfair control over the market.

When you violate the Copyright, you know that you have done it, because it's simply a copy. If you violate Patents, hidden in Patentprocess, popping up like a mine and broadly collected as even possible, you often won't be able to know if or when you have done this violation. Even and often Microsoft doesn't know, as current Patent lawsuits againts Microsoft shows. If this big company, with many years experience in patenting, isn't able to know and control - how should Europes SMEs do?

- Protection through Secrecy or Copyright: open source software is protected by copyright. closed source software is protected also by the secrecy of the source code, which requires a complex reverse engineering. It is easier to create from zero a solution without ever knowing that it is violating a patent.

- Complexity of Patent Handling: software is very complex, a single application can contain hundreds or thousands of different patents. It is very expensive and hard to know if my own software is violating any patent even if I wrote everything from zero.

- Univocity: what can we do if the solution of a problem is unique or simple/obvious? When there is no real invention behind, when it is possible to prove that most researches (challenging the same problem without knowledge of the patent) after a short time come to the same solution? It is correct to offer a patent in such case where just the first company who use and patent a simple or unique solution will be the "only" owner?.

- Benefit for few: only bigger companies have the economical resources (and so the advantage) of registering the patents of a software.

patents on software create fear, undermine confidence and stifle innovation damaging an independent European economy;

The fear created by software patents can have wider impact than over software industry itself. Software tools and their components are not devices, they are ideas and concepts, that is abstract knowledge in parallel with mathematical equations. There is a thin layer between patents on software and patents on thinking.

the European Patent Office and many national patent offices in Europe have granted (and continue granting) a large number of patents that can be infringed by a programmable apparatus running a software, e.g. a standard computer, even after the European Parliament in 2005 rejected the directive proposal to legalize software patents; the spirit of the European patent convention declines software as patentable subject matter; and many judges' decisions specially in the UK has confirmed it;

companies are dependent on computers for their businesses, but given the nature of software and the already granted patents in Europe it is practically impossible for them to research with a high degree of security which software infringes which patent, and thus make a risk calculation of litigation costs impossible;

software patents are currently used for strategically reasons mainly by big companies to control the competition, i.e. a more independent software market would foster innovation and the European economy independence, improving also businesses' and consumers' choice;

the software created by innovative small and medium-sized software companies and freelancers is sufficiently protected by copyright, but their businesses are put at incalculable risks by patents, and in addition to this, they don't have any use of the patent system for creating software;

the deployment of open source software, which is incompatible with patents, is dramatically increasing in Europe by companies, governments, and organizations opening new possibilities for the European economy and the reduction of costs by governments;

continued and even exacerbated granting of patents for unpatentable subject matter such as computer programs by EPO, against the will of europarl + natparls and according to rules that were explicitely criticised and rejected by a large majority of the elected lawmakers;

patents do not offer any advantage in the usage or creation of software. For the software developers amongst us, the author's rights (often referred to as "copyright") are the most appropriate form of protection for our works, whereas patents which affect computer programs undermine the author's rights. For our companies, these patents are significant obstacles to the operational business and often even pose existential threats;

The European Patent Office (EPO) continues to grant software patents. Thus, it infringes on the text and spirit of existing regulations, such as the German Patent Law or the European Patent Convention. This continuously increases legal uncertainty.

It is impossible to perform reliable research on software patents. Therefore, no one can avoid infringing patents unintentionally when developing or using software. The resulting risk of existence-threatening litigations is unforeseeable.

Development and usage of Open Source Software is incompatible with patents on software. Especially for our enterprises, the usage of Open Source Software is indispensable.

Software patents massively increase the costs of software development and lead to monopolisation. The middle-sized imprint of the European business landscape, which constitutes one of Europe's most important advantages of location, would get lost.

Software is a very fast moving market - something that was the big thing a few weeks ago is no longer interesting in the slightest today.
Even if you think software and related concepts should be patentable, the long life span of a patent effectively shuts out all competition forever (by the time a patent expires, not only the patented technology but 10 generations of successors are obsolete), which hurts everyone.

In countries that do allow software patents, such as the USA, a business branch commonly referred to as "patent sharks" has sprung up: Those companies do nothing but try to patent concepts they foresee will be used in software, and then sue developers who come up with an actual solution.
Those companies don't do any development, their only reason for existence is cashing in on others' independent development, and therefore hinder actual progress.
This business branch must not be allowed to get a foothold in Europe because its interests are the direct opposite of the people's and legitimate companies' interest.

to pass legal clarifications to substantive patent law to rule out any patent claim on software running on programmable apparatus;

to refrain from any further change in the European patent system, specially litigation and international agreements, before patents on programmable apparatus are ruled out in Europe;

to invalidate all granted claims on patents that can be infringed by a programmable apparatus running software;

to designate unbiased persons (coming from a different background than the patent professionals) in advise governmental positions and include more representatives of small business, civil society and consumers organizations in further discussions of the patent system.

We call for a legal framework which prevents interpretations that allow computer programs to be affected by patents. Expedient approaches do exist – e.g. the proposals of Buzek/Rocard of June/July 2005. Such a legal framework must unambiguously preclude that any software patent granted by the EPO can ever be legally enforced.

Additionally, all processes in the European Patent Organization (EPOrg) must be subject to independent democratic control. The principle of separation of powers has to equally apply to the European patent system. The EPOrg and its clerks must therefore not be assigned any tasks within the European juris­diction.

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