The European Parliament in Strasbourg voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday to reject a law that would have given software common patent protection across all countries in the European Union.

The decision, by 648 votes to 14, was preceded by a fierce four- year battle between those who supported the idea that companies should be able to own software and the inventions that use it and those who backed the idea that software breakthroughs should be shared widely and freely. That ideological battle will continue, though it will have to be fought separately in each of the 25 member states of the EU.

Both opponents and supporters of tougher patents in the Parliament united Wednesday to reject the bill with supporters fearing that amendments would be added that would have undermined existing national patent protection. Opponents, meanwhile, said the law would have bolstered the market power of big companies.

Some campaigners said the vote was a rejection of the approach to patents used by the United States, where there was a similar controversy about patents but which now permits a wide interpretation of what software inventions can be protected. Patents let their owners charge license fees for the use of innovations.

"We perceive it as a victory because we have avoided a directive that would have legitimized software patents in Europe," said Mark Webbink, deputy general council of Red Hat, one of the companies that opposed the law.

Over the four-year debate on the proposal, large technology companies like Nokia and Siemens, as well as some smaller companies, had lobbied forcefully for the proposal, saying it was necessary to protect their ideas across the Continent. It would encourage investment and further innovation in Europe, they said. But some companies, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems among them, were concerned that a new patent regime would inhibit smaller rivals from making competitive innovations.

Large technology companies that had campaigned vigorously for the new law said Wednesday that a single common patent would have cut costs, as they now must apply for separate patents in all 25 countries in the EU.

"This would have given clarity and greater certainty," said Francisco Mingorance, director of public policy at the Business Software Alliance, which represents companies like Microsoft and Apple. Mark MacGann, director general of EICTA, a trade group for technology companies, said: "This would have been good for Europe. But we will continue to invent products and patent them in Europe."

The vote was an abrupt rejection of the position of the European Commission and of EU member governments, which in March voted to support the proposed law. The Parliament had been expected to follow suit, although a committee of the Parliament put forward proposed amendments that would have significantly limited what types of software could be patented. "This is a rejection of the excesses of the U.S. system of software patents," said Ed Black, president of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, which called the vote a "victory for innovators worldwide." In an e-mailed statement, Black said, "Europe did something the U.S has yet to do: It had a wide-ranging, free and open debate on the limits of patentability." In a debate Tuesday, members of the European Parliament had complained that the lobbying of lawmakers by the competing interests had been among the most intense in the Parliament's history. After the vote Wednesday, the European Commission warned that the decision meant Europe's patent system would continue to be fragmented.

Benita Ferrero-Waldner, the EU's commissioner for external relations, said "patents would continue to be handled by national patent offices," which would lead to "different interpretations as to what is patentable," news agencies reported.