I have placed a couple of articles [1] on the Untrammelled website that I wrote during the previous campaign against software patents in Europe, in the hope that they may still be useful.
The future of software patents in Europe is uncertain. The Software Patent Directive was rejected by the European Parliament on the 6th of July 2005, after seven years of campaigning by people in Free Software Foundation Europe and others [2]. But the issue has not gone away.
The current status of software patents is that the law says that software is not patentable, the patent offices are approving software patent applications, and the national courts are mostly ruling that software patents are invalid. Now, those in favour of software patents have decided to try modifying the judiciary power. They don't like that the national courts are dismissing cases where software patent holders try to litigate against people [3].
[1] http://untrammelled.co.uk/?q=taxonomy/term/1
[2] http://fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/
[3] http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/the_futur...