UK will never follow 'one-click' patent precedent

Respondents agreed there is no need to significantly alter the current laws on software patents, which declare business methods as unpatentable.

The results could bring Europe into conflict with the US, and the government is calling on the European Commission to provide urgent clarification on the situation.

The patenting of business processes has been a hot topic in the last 18 months following amazon.com's decision to patent its 'one-click buying' method in the US. The claim started a race between internet firms to declare a whole series of online processes as private innovations.

Even telecoms giant BT jumped on the bandwagon, trying in June last year to enforce its patent on hyperlinks, one of the most fundamental technologies behind the world wide web. In January, Microsoft-owned travel site Expedia was forced to settle out-of-court with Priceline.com after a dispute over its reverse auction system.

In the light of such claims, the EC is currently reviewing the European Patent Convention. Results from the UK consultation will be passed on to Commissioners before they publish their report in April.

According to Patricia Hewitt, UK ecommerce minister, the consultation resulted in a wide range of views offered on the subject, but the majority felt business processes should be shared by all.

In a statement, Hewitt said: "Our key principle is that patents should be for technological innovations. So a program for a new machine tool should be patentable but a non-technological innovation, such as grammar-checking software for a word-processor, is not."

Lawyers agree that the consultation results are a valuable boost to the UK's position on business process patents. Simon Stokes, partner at law firm Tarlo Lyons said: "It is important that Europe takes a stand against the US on this. The government is quite clearly saying that the patenting of business processes is a can of worms it is not willing to open."

The consultation also looked at the patenting of software, and concluded software patents should be allowed, but that the situation requires urgent clarification.