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The current directive draft has caused a commotion ever since it won majority support in a vote last May - a majority that has subsequently melted into thin air as member states began to have concerns over what this directive might mean to their own burgeoning software industry with the formal legalisation of software patents.

The fight against the draft directive is as gripping as the latest page-turning best-seller or DVD release: there's the injustice of the unrecognised majority in opposition; the sinister moves of multinational corporates, with reports of Bill Gates threatening to move business out of Europe should software patents not be recognised in the EU; the coming together of hundreds of small businesses, hopeful that, united, they may be able to apply enough pressure to have the directive changed.

Then there's the white knuckle ride of the directive itself as it makes its way on and off EU meeting agendas. At any one of these meetings, the current draft of the directive could so easily be rubber-stamped

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with approval, setting it off on a course of ratification in which none of the concerns of the opposition would be addressed. And it has taken a series of eleventh-hour dashes from various ministers to prevent just this from happening.

Opposition has also come from within the EU itself. After a furious campaign of lobbying, JURI, the EU Committee on Legal Affairs Commission, and the European Parliament, both opposed the directive in its current form and recommended that the entire thing be rewritten.

But the Commission said no, dashing the hopes of many that the apparently increasingly precarious legislation was about to topple. And with that 'no', the spectre of rubber-stamping the directive was raised yet again.

The next meeting where this could happen is today. But again, a desperate bid looks as if it might scupper the directive and save the day. It appears that the Danish Minister of Economic and Industry Affairs Bent Bentsen has had his arm twisted by the Danish Parliament EU Committee and will now reopen discussions, jettisoning the directive from Monday's meeting and requesting that the directive's status be demoted to a level where it would be possible to amend the legislation and address opponents' concerns.

It looks certain that if this happens, then other ministers, such as Poland and the Netherlands, would stand behind Denmark. And given the lack of support from the ministers representing other EU members, the weight of opposition might be great enough to ensure the final draft of the directive really does represent the views and needs of a real majority.