The European Parliament didn't quite ban software patents, unfortunately.

I'm no big fan of patents, but in the abstract there is no reason that a fundamental insight or innovation (with the stress on fundamental) should be less protected because it's embodied in a software program rather than in the physiciality of a machine. The problem is that having allowed software patents, patent offices have gone crazy allowing patents for ideas that would have been considered common practice or obvious next steps in the past.

So an explicit rejection of patents for business methods, algorithms and such is a big step back to sanity.

What better example than the Fox-Franken lawsuit? (Yeah, that was copyright, but they really are just another form of patent.) In this case, the court clearly saw the stupidity of the suit, but the fact that FOX could copyright a three word ad phrase in the first place shows how rediculously loose our legal definitions in this area are.

The "fair and balanced" imbroglio was actually about trademark, yet another area in which industry has lately been able to expand "property" rights to shut down free speech. Now you can be nailed not only for violating a trademark, but for "diluting" it as well (don't ask). Prof. Balkin of Yale Law School had a nice post on the general subject of using intellectual property to stifle debate.