Despite the protests of Denmark, Poland, and Portugal, the EU Council has approved legislation (the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive) that introduces software patents into the EU. From what I understand of the EU's organizational structure, this means that the patents directive will now go to the EU Parliament for a vote, where it will most probably be voted into law.
This is, of course, a loss for the Free and Open Source Software movement. But it's also a loss for small software developers, as it's going to be harder and harder—and eventually impossible—for anyone to develop software that doesn't infringe on someone's patent. This won't hurt the big boys as much, because they'll enter into a network of cross-licensing agreements with each other. But for the folks who're excluded, look out. We've been over this aspect of the problem a million times here at Ars, though, so there's no need to go on about it at length. Also, see Lessig's short blog entry on the topic for more disappointment with the EU. (It looks like everyone is so winded on this topic that there's not much left to say at this point.)
That's ok, though. Stifling software innovation at home just leaves more room for countries like Brazil and Argentina to develop their own nascent software industry. (Notice I didn't say India, because they recently adopted software patents.)
