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;

The UK judges will be soon made irrelevant with the new EU-EPLA pro-patent court.