Dear Sir,

Thank you for your letter regarding the European Union Directive on software
patents. The Directive is intended to implement a clear intention across the
EU Member States that Europe should not follow the USA and Japan in allowing
widespread patent availability for software and business methods. Copyright
will remain the principal method of protecting intellectual propery in these
cases.

Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament supported the general line that
the Commission took. This builds on and clarifies the existing patent law
across the European Union and makes it clear that only software which forms
part of a technological process will be patentable. This will allow patents to
be provided for genuine technical inventions and stimulate European economic
development in areas of economic strength like mobile telephony, digital
television and computer controlled machine. Such an approach would be
compatible with national patent laws in the Member States and international
treaties.

The Conservatives supported the Commission's proposal because we believed that
codification of the existing position would avoid raising complicated issues
of the validity of existing patents across Europe or allowing current
unpatentable technologies to claim new patents. We did, however, support a
number of amendments to clarify the text and ensure that generic software
patents were specifically excluded.

The European Parliament voted on the Commission's proposal at the end of last
year, approving its principle but also approving a wide range of amendments to
the proposal, with the laudable intention of ensuring that patents would only
be available for inventions incorporating software as part of a technical
contribution. Unfortunately many of these amendments would render the
Directive unworkable and greatly restrict the scope of the original proposal.

The Directive has now moved to the Council where the Governments of the Member
States are amending it. Their negotiations are confidential but they are
expected to propose a text close to the position which the European Commission
bought forward originally and similar to the pragmatic approach which
Conservatives support. We will continue to press the Commission and Council to
produce a revised proposal that will achieve its political objectives, be
fully compatible with existing patent law, and provide a clearly understood
regime for inventions. In the next Parliament, we will not hesitate to propose
further amendments that will safeguard Europe's approach to generic software
patents. I consider that, since software designers have already been let down
by the Government's implementation of IR35, it is important that faced with
this new assault they should receive out strong support.

Yours Sincerely


Jill Burge
Office of Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP