European Patent Office (EPO)
The Munich-based intergovernmental body that grants European patents – including, despite an explicit exclusion, a great many on software.
The EPO was created by the European Patent Convention, signed in 1973, and opened its doors in 1977. It is not an EU institution: its members also include the UK, Switzerland, Norway and Turkey, among others. A single application in Munich can mature into patents across all of them.
Article 52 of the Convention excludes programs for computers from patentability – but only "as such". Those two words have carried an entire industry. EPO practice holds that an invention producing a "further technical effect" is patentable even if it consists of code, and such patents are granted as "computer-implemented inventions". So when the European Parliament voted down a 2005 directive that would have written the same thing into law, rather less changed than it appeared.