The New York Times is reporting that the EU Parliament has voted on the Draft Software Patents Directive - and added a few amendments that the Business Software Alliance will not be happy about.
The EU has taken a more restrictive view of what software should be patentable than the US courts currently take. There's a few interesting things in here - including restrictions on what can be patenting (ruling out pure information-processing software patents) and an exception for "use of a patented technique
is needed for the sole purpose of ensuring conversion of the conventions used
in two different computer systems or network so as to allow communication and
exchange of data content between them".
This isn't the end though - the draft now goes back to the Council of Ministers, who may well refuse to accept these amendments.
Still, this result in the EU Parliament does indicate success by a fairly strong opposition movement in Europe.