Court of Appeal parts company with the EPO on software patents

In the recent case of Aerotel Ltd v. Telco Holdings Ltd and Macrossan's Patent Application ([2006] EWCA Civ 1371), the Court of Appeal departed from underlying reasoning in the line of cases developed under the European Patent Convention since VICOM/Computer-related invention in 1987 considering itself bound by its own previous decisions. That being so, UK law and practice on software inventions no longer reflects current thinking at the EPO. This is a very serious matter which could have grave economic consequences for the software industry.