The European Union (EU) announced on July 6, 2005, that the European Parliament has rejected the Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions (CII Directive) which would have allowed developers to patent new software.
Unable to reach a compromise in the three-year struggle to establish common rules for patenting software inventions within the EU, members of the European Parliament (MEPs) overwhelmingly voted 648 to 14 to reject the directive altogether.
Many MEPs believed the directive should take a more restrictive means of harmonizing the EU’s differing national approaches to patenting inventions that rely on software, while others felt that patents are good for innovation and competitiveness.
Others criticized the bill for being too vague and said it might precipitate legal battles between software giants and small developers.