European Union

The European Commission is hinting that some progress has been made towards forging a single Community-wide patent - a wish by politicians across the continent for over three decades.

The time is not right to breathe back life into the European software patent, says Francisco Mingorance from the Business Software Alliance. Thomas Lau investigates.

"There is a large gap between the rhetoric of a political system that preaches the Knowledge Society and the reality of budgetary and other priorities that have shown little shift in preparing to engage with it." Esko Aho, former Prime Minister of Finland, in Creating an Innovative Europe, January 2006.

Europe preaches the knowledge society, but its aversion to risk and reluctance to change has got to go, warns Esko Aho, former prime minister of Finland.

Sworn enemies within the technology and pharmaceutical industries are joining forces in a lobbying drive to persuade European Union lawmakers to change a draft law they say will stifle innovation in Europe by criminalising patent infringements, along with all forms of intellectual property infringements.