The scheme rejected by EU is that of so called EU patents. They are
different from the European patents issued by
the EPO. The difference
is that the EU patents would have been
enforceable EU-wide, while the current
European Patents are only
enforceable individually in the member nations of the
European Patent
Convention (which I believe includes the UK, so I think you are
simply
wrong on that point). The owner needs to enforce them separately in
each country, and they can in theory be invalidated only separately in
each
country, but inside each country they have the same force as those
patents
issued by the national patent office.
Moreover, the UKIPO actually
does, contrary to popular
beief, issue software patents, it's just not
quite as hopeless as the EPO.
See e.g.
http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Software_patents_under_United_Kingdom_patent_law
for a good
summary of the issue. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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