Patentability of software inventions in Europe.

1. Introduction.

The question of the patentability of software works has been the subject of many doctrinal and practical disputes in recent years in the institutions of the European Community. The liberalization of scientific and legal views on the patentability of intangible goods logically led to the registration and ex post facto - judicial protection of patents for mathematical, educational and business methods, a trend that until recently was materially unthinkable, but received its breakthrough in the last thirty years. stimulated by some prominent (corporate) users of the patent system, as well as by new trends in the national patent offices themselves. In Europe, unlike other countries in the world (such as the United States), software patentability was effectively parried substantively, namely through Article 52, paragraph 2 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) [1] . This legal norm contains a comprehensive list of objects excluded from patentability, namely: discoveries, scientific theories and mathematical methods; schemes, rules and methods for performing mental operations, games or economic activity, as well as computer programs (as such).