Why does the following point keep coming up? Do I misunderstand the issue, or is this just plain nonsense:
From: http://www.enn.ie/news.html?code=9587188
Indeed, the big businesses that backed the directive -- such as Philips, Nokia, Alcatel and Microsoft [...] also say, in somewhat ominous terms, that without patent protection, big companies will be less inclined to spend cash on European R&D projects, because the governments of Europe cannot offer any guarantees that commercially useful technology will be protected. In the US, those much-needed safeguards are in place, patent supporters note.
I presume that these big companies will obtain patents in all territories where patents are available, regardless of where the R&D is performed. Unless they are threatening this merely as revenge (and I would think that there responsibility to their own shareholders precludes this), there would be no more or less reason to do R&D in Europe whether software is patentable there or not. Am I wrong?
Perplexed from Dublin.
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