A European Union (EU) government body has endorsed a patents bill, handing a victory to large companies with substantial software patent portfolios, such as Microsoft.
The directive, voted by the EU's council, is slated to be presented to the EU assembly for yet another vote. The issue promises to drone on for months.
At the last minute, opposition to the measure surfaced from Poland, Denmark, and Portugal, but the vote of the 25-country body overwhelmed the opposition.
Open source interests have opposed the directive, maintaining that it will stifle innovation.
Florian Mueller, campaign manager of nosoftwarepatents.com, he had psychological and political success factors on his side.
"Still, the hurdle is very high in a second reading the European Parliament will now have three months to reject or amend the proposal," Mueller said.
Hugo Lueders, director of a trade association supporting the existing EU patent structure, hailed the vote, telling the Associated Press that it will "enhance further progress of technological innovation in Europe".
Lueders is European public policy director of the US-based Computing Technology Industry Association (CompTIA).
While the issue of software patents has been vigorously debated for years, it has attracted increased attention in recent months with the explosive growth of open source software.
Microsoft has been aggressively filing software patents, and chief executive Steve Ballmer has claimed that open source software violates many of the company's patents.
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