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?

I think the clear delineator between copyright and patent is that to violate copyright you have to have the original work (or an authorised copy) to be able to copy it, a patent can be violated without ever being aware that the patent exists or ever having seen the 'work' that it is protecting. You can't patent the 'story' of a book, only the specific text implementation of it. Software should be afforded the same consideration, it expresses a solution to a concept or problem. By allowing it to be patented it is effectively allowing patent on a concept or a problem. Copyright suits software much better as it protects the specific innovation of that specific implementation of a system while still allowing others to innovate in the same space generating healthy competition.

As far as I understand it, I completely agree with the text.

I do not completely understand this sentence: "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."

Maybe you can clarify this?

I think that the comment of Frank Braungardt submitted at: 2008-09-24 01:43 is very important.

I would mention that the patent texts are more than unclear to non-patent lawyers. So even if one would investigate on its own source code, spend hours in patent bureaus, it is more than unlikely to find any or all of the infringed patents.