Z:gnu-www-ja-guardian-article--f299e3-Software patents are being cla/en

Software patents are being claimed at a tremendous rate in the US. If they become legal in Europe, most of those US patents will be extended to Europe also. This is likely to have a devastating effect on European software development&mdash;leading to job losses, a poorer economy, more expensive computer use, and less choice and less freedom for the end user. The advocates of software patents in Europe, and the probable beneficiaries of them, are the patent bureaucracy (more influence on more areas of life), patent lawyers (more business from both plaintiffs and defendants), and computer mega-corporations such as IBM and Microsoft.