" "Patents suppress innovation" and "We don't need patents because other IP protection forms are absolutely sufficient" are two of the arguments most frequently heard when discussing the problem of "software patents" in Europe. Unfortunately, the situation looks very different from the perspective of small European IT companies: IP theft is very common, and the law is considered to be so ineffective that aggrieved companies almost never decide to take legal action. And in the rare cases when they do, the law is of no use whatsoever. This situation is illustrated with reference to Polish software company, the Logotec Group."
Source: http://www.epo.org/about-us/events/epf2009/forum/programme/speeches.html#granstand