The EU law on software patents is not that different from US law in practice. Computer programs are not patentable as such, but “computer implemented inventions” are patentable. In the US the Alice interpretation of Section 101 has a similar effect. Say you develop software that does object detection for LIDAR. You can’t patent the code itself. But if the code has an “inventive step,” you can patent the technical aspects of the object detection method.
So what do software inventors in these countries do with their inventions?
Edit - It seems to me that there’s clamoring about software patents without suggestions for alternatives. Were software patents always disallowed in these countries? If not, what was the overall effect of “ending” them? Was there innovation and business activity, before and after?
Are those the companies that force patented technology, to the exclusion of free alternatives, into widely used standards, so that they can charge everyone that wants to read a FAT32 filesystem?
The ones that patent an idea, not method, like one-click buying, or minigames in loading screens?
The ones that have some overly broad, unreadable patent, that would be invalidated in court due to countless prior art, but use it to extort businesses for amounts too small to make litigation worthwhile?
Or is this some mythical inventor, that creates something actually useful, and licenses it to others at fair prices? Something that improves the state of the art, but bizarrely does not rely on any prior patents in that area (otherwise existing companies could simply block the use of the new method)? And this someone isn't already employed at some company where the invention was made during the normal course of R&D (because otherwise, you already have your answer as to what software inventors do - write software/do R&D for existing companies that need it).
How many such people are there? Enough to justify the enormous headache of software patents?
We don't consider 99% of them patentable. They're a technique, a style, an algorithm. No more an invention than a simple method for doing arithmetic.
Software can rarely come under a patent in the EU, but there is a very high bar to reach first. It's not my field so I'll avoid trying to explain where that bar is.
It is upon you, who think there is a need to replace them with anything, to motivate why. As far as I'm concerned, patents don't solve a problem and is therefore harmful.
