The effects of software patents are:
- Big companies suck money out of the market for doing nothing but having a patent.
- Will bring innovation to a halt
- Is good for lawyers, but will destroy the jobs of hundreds of thousands of software developers
- Will ultimately destroy the economy of any country participating in software patents

Software patents are similar to patenting thoughts or patenting sentences or movements.
Software patents are the opposite of crativity and innovation.
Companies like Microsoft are hell bent to prevent the rest of the world to get a pick of the software cake as well.
That's why they love software patents.
They can destroy any new product and any new company by starting a legal process, whether justified or not.
If the EU adopts spftware patents I predict that by 2015 the EU will have and average of 25% unemployment.

The U.S. continues to suffer under the legal hassles of pointless software patents. You just have to read some of these patents to realize that there are thousands of ways to implement most of them because they don't actually explain HOW to build them, just that a product with features X, Y, and Z are somehow patented. The USPTO has completely failed inventors and allowed lawyers to usurp innovation.

It's time for the U.S. to not only fix the broken software patents issue (no software patents!) but also to fix its broken torts system that allows a company to sue over patent infringement without any real basis, knowing that going to court will typically cost anywhere from $250,000 to $1M or more. No small inventor can fight that, and there are fools with patents that claim linking pages is patented, one-click purchases are patented, sending an email containing a link for people to pick up a document at that link is patented, and anything that already existed but now is available on via the Internet is patented.

Please E.U., not only don't follow our broken U.S. model, but put pressure on the fat cats and lawyers who are draining our competitive spirit. Hey, maybe that's why the don't care; they want to dominate the space as the U.S. falls in stature because lawyers and fools run the country.

If Linus, Monty Widenius, and Rasmus Lerdorf all oppose this, then that's good enough for me. Vote it down Europe!