European sense on patents

The running sore over so-called business methods patents for software will be added to the US-Europe divide, if the European Commission approves a new set of recommendations. For once, great sense has been shown. It looks like Europe will not allow business process patents, such as the Amazon.com “one-click” process.

American lobbyists claim this will stifle innovation in Europe. But everyone I’ve encountered who actually develops software believes the business process patents are a nonsense, and have a hugely negative effect on the industry’s innovative capacity.