According to EU law, software programs as such cannot be patented, but inventions that involve software can be patented if they represent an invention in a technological field. Some factions had sought to clearly limit what kinds of software-related inventions could be patented; Cult, for example, proposed an amendment to the proposal stating that "data processing is not a field of technology", removing it from consideration for patenting, while defining technology as "controlling forces of nature to achieve a physical effect". At the opposite extreme, it would be possible to interpret the fact that a program is running on a computer as meeting the definition of a technical invention, which would essentially mean that any software could be patented, according to the arguments of many software developers. Those rallying against software patents, including a group of high-ranking scientists around the EU who published a recent petition, and the 148,000 people who have so far signed a similar petition organised by the EuroLinux Alliance, fear that an increasing number of software-related patents will increase the sway of large patent-holding companies over small software developers. The petitioning scientists argued that software patents "would be not only useless, but also extremely harmful, because they would cast in concrete the powerful oligopolies that naturally emerge in information-based industries." Such a system already exists in the US, where the patent office has a liberal patent-granting policy, and to a large extent leaves the court system to determine whether patents are enforceable, according to legal experts. Since smaller companies usually do not have the funds to fight against patent claims in court, they tend to pay royalties instead, experts said. Recent patent controversies in the US have centred on Web site cookies, online ads and Web site navigation. Richard Stallman in a speech last year said the logic behind the US software patents regime would have forced Beethoven to pay Mozart for the right to create a new symphony. Richard Clark, chief editor for the JPEG standardisation committee, which recently faced a patent claim which would have imposed royalty fees on almost every digital imaging device, said the proposal as it stands would worsen the patent situation for standards makers. "The members of the JPEG committee have spent years fighting off frivolous patent claims that have partially succeded in destroying our standardisation efforts. With the new regulation proposed by JURI, we are in for even more trouble," he said in a statement.
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