| Summary: | In February 2002 the European commission put forward a proposal for a new directive on The patentability of computer-implemented inventions, but which during my work on this essay has not been decided on yet. The directive has divided the decision-makers in the union, the commission and parliament, into two different positions regarding by which range computer-implemented inventions should be patentable. The parliament has amended the commissions proposal in a substantial way and the legal process has caused a heated debate both within the unions administration and among various interest groups both in favour of and against a patent on computer-implemented inventions. The loudest protests have come from a group that feels threatened by a possible software patent: Open Source. In this study I examine both the arguments by the decision-makers and by the lobbying for and against the proposal. By analysing the rhetoric in selected texts, I have been able to find different standpoints and perspectives on intellectual property. While the commission shows a narrow economic perspective on the regulation of intellectual property, the parliament has shown a concern for creativity that should not be too severely controlled by a few. The commission advocates liberalised rules of patentability while the parliament wants to draw the line clearly around what inventions can and cannot be given patent. There is also a divergent attitude to the phenomenon Open Source software, which the decision-makers have neglected in the process, but which other parts of the unions administration notice as the possible future of the software market. === Uppsatsnivå: D
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