Enlarged Board
The reason this has now come to a head in Europe is because the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office has been debating whether software patents should be enforceable in EU counties. The battleground is Article 52 of the European Patent Convention, which specifically states what's excluded from patent protection.

Last year, the European Patent Office (EPO) issued far fewer patents than in 2006. The Munich patent authorities have announced that they approved exactly 54,699 patent applications for commercial protection, 12.9 per cent fewer than in the previous year.

Software patent law is not for the faint hearted. Now the FSF has funded a new video where top hackers and legal experts explain where the idea came from and just why it is so bad for free software. With increasing evidence that patents harm, rather then help, innovation, is the tide beginning to turn against software patents?

Microsoft was awarded more than 1,600 patents by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in 2007, placing it sixth on the list of biggest patent performers, according to IFI Patent Intelligence, which tracks patent awards. IBM, which tried but failed to patent outsourcing last year, won the patent count for the 16th straight year, with more than 3,100 patents.

A patent is a powerful thing: it's a legal monopoly on an invention for up to 20 years. In the past, patents were almost universally regarded as essential to the economy. By rewarding innovation, they created an incentive for inventors to invent more. Yet more than any other time in our history, the patent system now is under fire, and enormous change has been afoot to "fix" it.

Red Hat and Novell stood up to a patent bully and got a favorable jury verdict in the IPI trial which invalidated some software patents that should never have been issued. It's hard to see how that's not a good thing for open source. It's also good that the particular battle has inspired discussion of the need for fundamental reform of the U.S. patent system.

Google is playing "patent God" by acquiring a monopoly on MapReduce and then pardoning those who worship its feet and don't pose a commercial threat

Short translation: Microsoft actually chose to pretend to be opening because it serves the company’s intention to run an extortion racket against its main competitor.

"End Software Patents, a project working toward the elimination of software patents, was launched today. The ESP project will initially focus on two approaches: 1) assisting corporations that choose to challenge software patents in the courts and at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on the basis that patents for software and designs with no physically innovative step have no legal validity, and 2) public education aimed at passing laws to protect software from patent law. [...] In a separate announcement today, ESP released its first report on the current state of software and business method patents. The report covers the economic impact of software patents, including the $11.4 billion that U.S. businesses waste each year on software patent litigation.