It is interesting to read that Poland is balking at the new EU Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions. Right now only the US really patents software but Europe is moving towards it and when Europe moves on a legal standard, we move eventually. This is the case with privacy laws and to a lesser degree with consumer protection laws. One source of these new rules is the EU Directive. Why? Because they often have clauses in them that say within "X" number of years the EU will not do trade with countries which do not have "Y" characteristic in their domestic law to provide EU-level intellectual property rights or privacy rights or consumer rights to EU interests in that country.