12/05/2004 (Agence Europe) - The Italian Radical Marco Cappato, MEP, has written to the Italian Minister for Innovation and Technology, Lucio Stanca, to ask him, if he represents Italy at the Competitiveness Council of 17 and 18 May, to oppose the proposal by the Irish Presidency on the patentability of software. The Irish proposal rejects all the amendments introduced by the European Parliament on 24 September 2003, limiting patentability, says the Lista Bonina MEP, who says, "pure software should be excluded, as planned by the European Convention on Patents, from the field of patentability". Mr Cappato, who calls upon Italy to ask next Monday's Council for a "bottom-up revision" of the Irish Presidency's proposal, points out that the report by Arlene McCarthy (Labour, UK), which the Parliament adopted last September, authorised the patentability "of inventions, equipment (...) which require software for their functioning, thus aligning the patent with its original nature, which is to protect inventions rather than abstract concepts, of which software is a specific form".