The study of 263 German businesses concluded that Europe should avoid the US model of allowing business method and software patents. The European Commission is soon expected to re-draft EU law based on the results of a consultation on how far to liberate the laws on software patents.
Recently, the European Patent Organisation (EPO)modified its guidelines on patentability of inventions. The modification provides that a “computer-implemented invention” (which includes software) shall be eligible for a patent if it shows a “technical effect which lends technical character to a computer program.” The guidelines explain that,
"this may be found e.g. in the control of an industrial process or in processing data which represent physical entities or in the internal functioning of the computer itself or its interfaces under the influence of the program and could, for example, affect the efficiency or security of a process, the management of computer resources required or the rate of data transfer in a communication link."