While the rest of the world is looking at the daft patent rulings that are coming out of the US, a Microsoft lawyer thinks that it would be better if the whole world did it that way.

Microsoft's Deputy General Counsel Horacio Gutierrez is calling for the creation of a global patent system to make it easier and faster for corporations to enforce their intellectual property rights around the world. Writing in his blog, he said that a backlog of patent applications internationally was needed to tackle the 3.5 million pending patent applications around the world--including around 750,000 in the US.

He said that everything was global and it was time for a world patent that is derived from a single application, examined and prosecuted by a single examining authority and litigated before a single judicial body. Guiterrez said that a harmonised, global patent system would resolve many of the criticisms leveled at national patent systems over unmanageable backlogs and long waiting periods.

However Microsoft might find that the rest of the world is a little more sensible about software patents. There is a move in the EU to remove software from the list of things that could be subject to patents. The UK Pirate Party, also opposed to the current patent system, and has put reform of the process at the center of its campaign for the next election.