The draft, which seeks to harmonise Europe's rules, passed by 361 votes to 157, with 28 abstentions. But the European Commission appears to be unimpressed.
The "computer-implemented inventions" covered by the draft Directive are described as devices like mobile phones, intelligent household appliances, engine control devices, machine tools and computer program related inventions.
The parliamentary debate on the draft Directive was cancelled twice in response to criticisms that the proposed legislation risked bringing to Europe the more liberal regime of software and business method patenting that exists in the US.
The most recent draft still did not satisfy critics in the open-source and small business communities, and a total of 78 amendments were put forward for debate. Accordingly, the amendments passed yesterday have tightened the wording – perhaps sufficiently to please small businesses and developers, but to the apparent annoyance of big players in the industry.
Under the proposal, an "invention" requires a contribution to the state of the art in a technical field. For an invention to be patentable it must be technical, new, non-obvious, and susceptible of industrial application. But the draft now states that a computer-implemented invention should not be regarded as making a technical contribution merely because it involves the use of a computer, network or other programmable apparatus.
This means that patents should not be granted for software inventions that implement business, mathematical or other methods and do not produce any technical effects beyond the normal physical interactions between a program and the machine or network on which it operates.
The draft was also amended to ensure that the use of a patented technique in order to ensure interoperability between two different computer systems or networks would not be regarded as a breach of that patent.
Finally, MEPs have worded the law to ensure that suppliers cannot be sued for infringing a patent – so only the end-users face this risk.
The amendments were welcomed by the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII), which had been campaigning for their inclusion. According to ZDNet News, FFII's Hartmut Pilch said:
"Now we will have to see whether the European Commission is committed to 'harmonisation and clarification', or only to patent owner interests... Yesterday's threats uttered by Bolkestein against the European Parliament suggest the latter."
Commissioner Bolkestein had warned at the start of the debate that if the amendments were passed then the Commission, which still has to approve the draft directive, could well withdraw the Directive. It is possible that the Commission would rather renegotiate the existing European Patent Convention than accept amendments that would, in its view, weaken the EU industry globally.
The amendments also met with dismay from industry representatives. Anthony Parish, president of the European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Association (EICTA) said that,
"Parliament has made a great mistake by proposing a number of damaging amendments which will roll back patent protection for Europe's inventors in sectors as diverse as telecommunications, motor vehicles, information technology, machine tools and consumer electronics."
He went on,
"EICTA calls upon the Council of Ministers to correct the damage done in Parliament and restore the status quo which has served Europe well."
The draft directive now goes before the Council of Ministers on 10th November, and will then return to the Parliament for a second reading.