1. The laws say "not patentable" (European Patent Convention Art. 52(2)(c) which you find also in the national patent laws as it is harmonized by the EPC members) with exeptions that this means only the thing (software) _as such_ (EPC Art 52(3)), so a patent involving an apparatus and software/algorithms can be valid if the software provides non-obvious technical improvement -- which is the legal domain of patents. Pseudo-technical stuff like "it's technical because it runs on a computer and therefore has to move bits around for which we need electrical signals which are technical" should make it void, as technical means something with natural forces, e.g. a machine doing stuff in the real world -- in which case the software part makes it technical better. Software used for other non-technical stuff in the technical apparatus (like making more economic, searching/displaying information, etc.) also should not count, as it is non-technical.
2. However EPA practice seems to be more lax then the courts regarding the technicality requirements. And with the masses of patents being granted and only those go to the court where two parties see themselves in conflict, there are many already and they are getting more
More Details on Wikipedia.
And guess what?
Even if your company does not participate in this shitshow in Europe as the legal situation is _somewhat_ clear (as long they don't want to change the law again, like another commenter mentioned: there were several initiatives). If it is big enough to care about patents at all, it is probably also big enough to be doing business in USA and plays the game there, even if only for defensive purposes, as this phenomenon is even more widespread/serious there.
So there you can have it all: be an European employee, living in Europe, working for an European Software Company (doing nothing technical) in Europe and still involved in this mess, even as a (US) patent holder. (The good news: for successful patent registrations they have to pay you extra per law, at least in Germany.)
Just search on Google Patents for patents from (big) European Software Companies. You'll find a lot, but mostly registered in the US, at least from my sampling. And the stuff you'll find is not only from the colleagues in the US subsidiaries.
(Edit: Italics Formatting, Fix: does-->does not / Delete+Repost actually, as it did not save the update.)
1. The laws say "not patentable" (European Patent Convention Art. 52(2)(c) which you find also in the national patent laws as it is harmonized by the EPC members) with exeptions that this means only the thing (software) _as such_ (EPC Art 52(3)), so a patent involving an apparatus and software/algorithms can be valid if the software provides non-obvious technical improvement -- which is the legal domain of patents. Pseudo-technical stuff like "it's technical because it runs on a computer and therefore has to move bits around for which we need electrical signals which are technical" should make it void, as technical means something with natural forces, e.g. a machine doing stuff in the real world -- in which case the software part makes it technical better. Software used for other non-technical stuff in the technical apparatus (like making more economic, searching/displaying information, etc.) also should not count, as it is non-technical.
2. However EPA practice seems to be more lax then the courts regarding the technicality requirements. And with the masses of patents being granted and only those go to the court where two parties see themselves in conflict, there are many already and they are getting more
More Details on Wikipedia.
And guess what?
Even if your company does not participate in this shitshow in Europe as the legal situation is _somewhat_ clear (as long they don't want to change the law again, like another commenter mentioned: there were several initiatives). If it is big enough to care about patents at all, it is probably also big enough to be doing business in USA and plays the game there, even if only for defensive purposes, as this phenomenon is even more widespread/serious there.
So there you can have it all: be an European employee, living in Europe, working for an European Software Company (doing nothing technical) in Europe and still involved in this mess, even as a (US) patent holder. (The good news: for successful patent registrations they have to pay you extra per law, at least in Germany.)
Just search on Google Patents for patents from (big) European Software Companies. You'll find a lot, but mostly registered in the US, at least from my sampling. And the stuff you'll find is not only from the colleagues in the US subsidiaries.
(Edit: Italics Formatting, Fix: does-->does not / Delete+Repost actually, as it did not save the update.)