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Currently there is a campaign to keep Europe free from a software patent system similar to that of the US.
You will find all the explanation, arguments and links you need (even of the Pro lobbyists) at
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/basics/index .html

As for my explanation: software is merely a compilation of thousands of smaller expressions in order to mimic something that already exists in real life. It's an idea, and idea's can not be patented, only manufacturing processes. Even if you would be granted to write software covered by a patent, then you will have to go thru all the research, exerimenting, analysis, coding, testing, debugging, and refining steps to get your product out of the door. This is not the case with regular manufacturing related patents. Software has -and needs only - Copyright. That's enough.

Of course there is the GPL [ http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html ] or "Copyleft". And my guess is that Open Source and GPL is are two of the reasons why the Powers That Be want Software Patents so bad.

Of course it is stupid to think of a patent for the idea to issue a "Gift Certificate". There is no such patent.
So why should the idea of delivering a "Gift Certificate" through a web application (=software) be patented? Insane.

I systematically keep a paper catalog of my Compact discs. And I have a page where I consistently keep a list up to date with all songs from 1975. So I have prior art to a smart playlist.

Someone on this topic posted a nice comment:
"You'll die through your own weapons."

In the meantime, please use nosoftwarepatents.com instead, where you will find more information on the issue.

In the meantime, please use nosoftwarepatents.com instead, where you will find more information on the issue.

...please just take the time to write a letter to MEP. That site gives the addresses and phone numbers you can write and fax to. (Emails are too ineffective; most MEPs get so many that they just get their secretaries to send out form responses.) If we can Slashdot politicans about this issue in real life, we might have a chance to stop this pro-corporate bullshit going through. See swpat.ffii.org for more info, and this site for more specific information about communicating with politicos.

That's pretty obvious. There are so many large and powerful companies who want this pushed through that they will keep on and on and on at Europe to enforce software patents. That doesn't mean we should just sit back and let them. There are contact details already in this slashdot discussion, and there are protest sites out there. We don't have to sit back and let it happen.

Big business wants to force this through? They'll soon find they have a fight on their hands each and every single time they try it.

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index. html

This site seems to focus on software patents in Europe, but they seem to have some information on why they are "bad": http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index. html

(disclaimer: I haven't really read much of it myself, just looked over it briefly since it was linked from the knoppix site...)

This parliament decides on the cabinet (minister of state, minister of foreign affairs etc.).

The democratically elected danish parliament (Folketinget) has no direct influence on the appointment of the government ministers. See article 14 in the danish constitution: "The King shall appoint and dismiss the Prime Minister and the other Ministers."

But article 15 ("A Minister shall not remain in office after the Folketing has approved a vote of no confidence in him.") means that the danish parliament can sack any minister (or the whole government) with a simple majority vote.

What happens when a danish government has to be appointed is:

• The leaders of the parties in parliament go to the Queen and each tell her who they would like as Prime Minister. This is only advisory, but helps the Queen appoint a stable government that the danish parliament is unlikely to sack.
• The Queen appoints the Prime Minister.
• The Prime Minister appoints the other ministers in the government.
• The Queen approves the other ministers appointed.

Bendt Bendtsen could have been sacked by the danish parliament because of this, but he was lucky: One of the large parties in parliament turned around and accepted that he did not do what they asked him to do, and then the majority for sacking him was gone.

In Demark there was a binding order from Parliament. But the responsible minister ignored it and they created a superficial and incredible theater piece. It had no consequences for the Minister responsible. Denmark is strange. In rotten Denmark the "Road to Europe" had no political consequences for Rasmussen, he did not step down. Similarly the representative was rescued by the social democrats. In other European states he would regarded as a criminal. Democracy in Denmark is soft, it is still a monarchy.
http://wiki.ffii.org/Dkparl050304En
http://wiki.ffii.org/Cons050307En
http://wiki.ffii.org/Navision050215En
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=439
http://osdir.com/Article629.phtml

I think there are a lot of people who for one reason or another think that competition from other countries is a bad thing.

They seem to think that it is somehow 'unfair' that people in other contries can make product X cheaper. I don't know how many times I've heard the 'rush to the bottom' argument from people who obviously have no grasp of basic economics.

If you are one of those people please read this:
http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/pdg.pl?fcd=dsp&term =The+Wide,+Wide+World+Of+FOREIGN+TRADE

The reason competition is good in this particular case is because the US government is clearly not acting in its citizens best interest in regards to software patents.

The contries that have a more rational intelectual property policy will obviously benefit. This will do one of two things:

1. Businesses and citizens who create software will be forced to move to these 'enlightened' contries if they aren't there already. Basically the US will find itself locking itself out of the software market because producing software in the US will become too expensive or in some instances maybe even impossible.

2. Because of pressure from 1. the US will be forced to adopt better laws.

Basically if you can squash competition by making everyone obey your rules then you can force through productivity and creativity limiting laws such as software patents.

However in a free marketplace countries that have chosen not to incorporate such laws will naturally do better than countries that have. I'm assuming here of course that software patents stifle creativity and productivity but I think this is a pretty safe assumtption.

If you don't understand why software patents are bad please read this:

http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index. html

In short this is good for everyone because it will garantee that consumers of software will continue to benefit from the explosion of creativity and productivity in the software industry. Also for those of us who produce software this helps by putting real pressure on our government to change its tune in regards to software patents.

from that site:

The European parliament will now be taking the last stand against software patents in a voting for which an absolute majority is needed. Such a majority is hard to come by in a parliament with a low attendance level.

But not all is lost yet as long as you decide it is time to make a difference and take action. This is our last opportunity to fend off software patents worldwide, there will be no second chance for the foreseeable future.

Signing petitions will not suffice. Contact your local EU representatives and educate them why software patents are a bad idea in the first place and why they must attend that parliament session to vote against them. Make it clear that they need to stop the machinations of the EU council and reaffirm the power of the EU parliament, the only democratically elected EU institution. For in-depth information and starting points to get active visit the software patent page of the FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) and NoSoftwarePatents.com.

Microsoft Corp. and DG Internal Market Announce Definitive Merger Agreement
Combined Entity to Operate Under the Name of Microsoft Marché Corp. With Dual Headquarters in Redmond and Dublin

Er... you are Florian Müller and I claim my five Euro!

Seriously, this notion that Microsoft has "bought" Ireland is totally insulting to me and to a couple of million other Irish people. Sure, Commissioner McCreevy is acting in a Microsoft-friendly manner, but he's far from the only Commissioner to do so - note that the software patents directive in its current form was brought in by the Dutch commissioner who was McCreevy's predecessor. Articles like this aren't actually useful, as they make Ireland the scapegoat for corporate-friendly government policies everywhere. This is nonsense; plenty of right-wing governments support exactly the sort of corporate-friendly policies which the software patents directive represents; and Ireland's is far from alone in this.

Note also that the majority of Ireland's MEPs are opposed to the Directive as it stands - see here for details of the current campaign.

MS denied the story later, you can believe the demial if you please, but if you do, "want to buy some land"?

IMHO, NO, WE CAN'T TRUST THE SOURCE

Dr. Berger describes the letter of the president of the Commission (José Manuel Barroso) to the president of the EP (Josep Borrell), in which a restart of the process is declined, as "yet another provocation of the parliament". She concludes that Barroso "apparently loves to play high-stakes poker with the EP", and recalls that he already suffered his first defeat with that approach last year when he had to withdraw his list of proposed commissioners because the EP would otherwise have withheld its approval. The way she sees the present situation, Barroso may now face another defeat. Dr. Berger concludes saying that Bill Gates, who recently traveled Europe to pressure politicians toward a directive to his liking, "is at the moment making himself ever more enemies in the EP".

Microsoft's push for EU software patents drew major attention last month after a leading Danish financial newspaper quoted Microsoft Denmark's chief lobbyist who said that Bill Gates had threatened the Danish government with killing 800 jobs unless the EU were to legalize software patents. The Danish social democrats responded with a press release that "blackmail shall not dictate Danish policy". Microsoft subsequently denied that Gates made the respective statement but did admit that intellectual property rights and their connection with the location of jobs were discussed in the respective meeting.

I see many posts about Europeans not being interested in politics and the European parliament in Brussels being corrupt.

I 'd like to remind everyone out there of the many Europeans who are very active in protesting against patents like the people of NoSoftwarePatents and the Federation for a Free Information Infrastructure, encouraging people around Europe to get a hold of their MEPs and making them aware of the importance of the matter.

Hey a lot of us went to Brussels (with bananas!) to protest February 17, there where busses organised even from Paris.

We write, fax and mail our politicians, even send them fresh fruit to show how much we care about this!

Apparently, the Danes have stepped up to kill this one! http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic. php?t=428

I will start worrying when Google won't work in IE anymore. Which is as likely to happen as Windows being built on top of the Linux kernel. By supporting Mozilla.org, Google is ensuring that Microsoft won't be able to push through whatever formats and standards they like simply through the power of ubiquity. After all, there's nothing like healthy competition to promote inovation. (And absence of software patents, but I digress.)

He's everything but a free software spokesperson.

As it stands, it's depressingly sobering...M$ has the financial clout to do a lot of damage in court

the idea of posting an ISO of the completed system is really the antithesis of the Gentoo concept.

If you prefer to "compile a little longer", of course it works on Gentoo as well - which makes sense, since the goal for the living room should be an optimized, fanless PVR. (Of course, the ultimate challenge is porting this to a Mac mini with some USB or FireWire dongle receiver...)

So come July, (if the EU is spared from software patents - heed the call of your alpha geeks and join the campaign... Europeans now need all the help they can get to continue providing a refuge for otherwise patent-encumbered projects) chances are that the source is here to stay.

Just try and get a compatible card, i.e. one with open source drivers.

An American VDR site can be found at HoochVDR (need to register to see the forums), while the bulk of the discussion goes on at the VDR Portal - much of it is in German, but scrolling down the page, the International (i.e. "English only") section is not hard to find...

Unfortunately, multi-national corporations have a great deal to gain with such practices, and their expected value is actually fairly high, even taking into account the legal fees, fines and embarrassment of getting caught now and again.

Unfortunately, the public, as compared to the vested business interests, is generally apathetic, since they have less to lose individually, than the corporations. This means that the corporations will merely continue their efforts until the public loses interest and they succeed in converting their selfish desires into government policy. This may take years, but they have the focus to see it through to the end.

In the particular case, software patents, there has been public outcry in Europe against them and the politicians have generally listened. Each time we think the issue is close some massive business entity resurrects the discussion, in spite of the public opinion. Obviously this hasn't yet met with success and now Microsoft is attempting some innovative (sic) and repulsive tactics.

What should we as individuals do?

• Spread the word and name names. Tell your friends, your co-workers, you boss, or even better, your neighbor the elected official, that Microsoft has attempted to co-opt the democratic process in Denmark.
• Wite letters to newspapers, journals, and elected officials explaining why software patents are a bad idea in Europe.
• Vote with your feet. Stop buying/using products from companies that engage in unfair business and political practices.
• Donate to the EFT, Groklaw and other similar institutions.
• Remain vigilant.

Note: I'm not against big business, provided they play fair. Unfortunately, my experience has been that large corporations tend to use their size advantages in ways that make it difficult for smaller (and in many cases more innovative) business to compete. It's up to the small guy to fight back (in a fair way :).

Microsoft has become much more aggressive about obtaining software patents recently. Why, in your view, are they doing so, if not to build a weapon against their only significant competition?

In the case of the fabled IBM patent counter-offensive, how do you know that IBM's interest in the Linux kernel is greater than their interest in gaining access to Microsoft's ever-burgeoning patent portfolio? Large companies cross-license entire patent portfolios at the drop of a hat, it seems.. is it known that IBM and Micrsoft do not have any extant cross-licensing agreement in place? When Microsoft and Sun entered into a cross-licensing agreement, Microsoft was most careful not to allow that cross-license to leak into open source development..

And it's nice that Linus Torvalds says he is not concerned, but he has also very publicly called for them not to be approved in Europe.

I can agree that in some cases of extraordinary invention, a software patent might be a proper thing to grant. I can not agree, however, that there have been 150k-300k extraordinary inventions in software since software patents have been granted.

Software patents are bringing us to a regime where it is necessary to have lawyers in order to write and distribute software. Requiring lawyers to be involved isn't such a burden when producing a product involves the funding and creation of factories and of physical distribution channels, but it is a significant burden on software development. Yes, lawyers are involved in copyright, but the scope of copyright is much narrower than the scope of patent, and patents are cumulative. It takes a lot of effort for a software work to violate many copyrights, but a single work could violate just as many patents as the USPTO is willing to give out.

I fundamentally do not believe that software patents significantly advance the speed of technical development. Rather, I think they slow it down, to the benefit of the companies who obtain the patents, and not necessarily to society at large.

To take the most obvious example, the Internet could not have happened as it did if all those protocols and techniques in the RFCs had been patented. Companies would not have been motivated to invest in software services on the higher levels if a Microsoft (or an EOLAS, as you point out.. paging the Viola browser) had been extracting patent-driven monopoly rents for the use of Internet technologies.

Last Nov., Linus co-authored an appeal to the EU opposing software parents. Read it at nosoftwarepatents.com. That's about as clear as you can get, I think.

(By the way, don't forget to thank Poland.)

"I don't see anything in what he said that says that software patents shouldn't ever be issued, only that in a lot of cases, they were issued in violation of the USPTO's own rules."

"For the sake of innovation and a competitive software market, we sincerely hope that the European Union will seize this opportunity to exclude software from patentability and gain a major competitive advantage in the information age."

The thing that scares me, is to see it happening in the states too. have a look at this : http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ We in europe are vewwie vewwie scared....

But it's good news in whatever language :-)

You forgot the link.

A MEP of the party I vote for signed the motion, so I wrote her a nice thank-you letter.

If you find "your" MEP on the list of signatories, please do the same to let them know that a lot of people actually care about this.

The list of all members is linked here

They still are lobbying for software patents in the EU, which doesn't qualify a "good guy" action to me. See also the following NoSoftwarePatents.com press release (http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic .php?t=288):

NOSOFTWAREPATENTS.COM CRITICIZES IBM FOR "DIVERSIONARY TACTICS", "AGGRESSIVE PATENT LOBBYING" AND "SQUEEZING" IN CONNECTION WITH IBM's REPORTED RELEASE OF 500 PATENTS FOR OPEN-SOURCE USE

Munich (11 January 2005). Media reports appeared last night acording to which IBM now allows open-source software developers to use 500 of its approximately 40,000 patents. Florian Mueller, campaign manager of NoSoftwarePatents.com, commented on IBM's move:

"Recently IBM made an unsubstantial non-aggression promise with respect to Linux, and now they show off again. It's just diversionary tactics. Let's put this into perspective: We're talking about roughly 1% of IBM's worldwide patent portfolio. They file that number of patents in about a month's time.

In Europe, IBM is a driving force behind the extension of the scope of patentability with respect to software. If IBM wants to assume the role of a post-Christmas benefactor, they'd better stop their aggressive patent lobbying in the EU and their shameless squeezing of small and medium-sized companies with that IBM "patent tax". Let's take it from there. We can still talk about some kind of patent pittance after that."

IBM is just playing games, they are lobbying heavily in favour of software patents in Europe. See e.g. this reaction from the nosoftwarepatents.com campaign.

The patent lobby tried to introduce software patents in Europe silently as well. Thanks to the FFII there was enough noise to wake up politicians. Now we have additional support from sites like No Software Patents, but it took a lot of time to get this support.

Hopefully there is a chance to postpone the decision so the indian people and politicians can catch up on software patents.

This may be only a temporary reprieve, but it could also, quite possibly, be a sign that the tides may be changing in the Council. Let's all hope for the best, and do what we can to make it happen.

This may be only a temporary reprieve, but it could also, quite possibly, be a sign that the tides may be changing in the Council. Let's all hope for the best, and do what we can to make it happen.

See: http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/

I *think* this is what is happening. The Council is formed from the ministers of the Member States of the Union.

It proposes legislation on the advice of the EU Commission (yet another body made up of appointed bureaucrats whose purpose is to develop and uphold the workings of the Union).

This directive has been proposed under the so-called co-decision arrangement with the European Parliament - the directly elected body of the EU.

In co-decision, Parliament has some measure of veto over the Council - it is the strongest of the arrangements between the parties. Council has sent the draft directive to Parliament.

Parliament could adopt the proposed legislation - whereupon it would have taken effect in the EU, instead it proposed amendments.

The amendments have then gone back to Council which now has a choice. It can choose to accept Parliament's amendments and produce a compromise directive. Or it can override Parliament - but only by a unanimous vote by the members of Council. This is why the Poles are being strong-armed.

If Council rejects the Parliamentary amendments and fails to vote unanimously, the legislation must then head towards conciliation and arbitration which is brain-bleedingly complicated since the Commission becomes involved.

There, the EP can only amend the text that returned from the Council with absolute majorities (nr_of_MEPs/2+1 must vote in favour in order for an amendment to be accepted, regardless of how many MEPs are actually present for voting).

Next, if the EP accepts the text without amendments, the directive is approved. It can also be downright rejected. Finally, if it's accepted with amendments it goes back to the Council for a second reading.

I don't know the exact rules in the Council for second reading, but if they accept the Parliament's amendments the directive is again approved, and if they amend it, it goes back to the EP for the third reading.

In the third reading, the EP can only say yes or no. If they say no, then conciliation happens.

So all is not lost, the insitutions are working, although I have to wonder about the fisheries involvement. I would have thought those ministers have their own problems at the moment.

Such an A-point can happen at any Council formation. So even though the competitiveness formation is responsible for the swpats, if they bring it on as A-point they can indeed have it signed at the Fisheries Council session.

What the EU Council is trying to do is, way above and beyond the issue of software patents, an assault at democracy itself. In a democratic system based on lawfulness, a decision needs to meet the majority requirements (in this case: the requirements for a qualified majority in the EU Council) on the day of the formal decision, not more than 6 months earlier. Since the EU Council's political agreement on May 18th, - the Dutch parliament called on its government to abstain (July 1st; abstention in the Council has technically the same effect as voting against) - the voting weights changed (November 1st, see http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/docs/041101qm.pdf ) - the Polish government clarified that it cannot support the proposal in question (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=158 , November 16th) - all four groups in the German parliament agreed on a joint motion against the Council's proposal (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=222) Consequently, the Belgian minister of economic affairs even said last week that there was no more qualified majority in place: http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? t=233 BTW, it's not just my opinion that it would be antidemocratic if the Council took the decision in question. That was said last week by Othmar Karas MEP, who is a vice president of the largest group in the European Parliament, the conservative European People's Party (Christian Democrats) - European Democrats.

What the EU Council is trying to do is, way above and beyond the issue of software patents, an assault at democracy itself. In a democratic system based on lawfulness, a decision needs to meet the majority requirements (in this case: the requirements for a qualified majority in the EU Council) on the day of the formal decision, not more than 6 months earlier. Since the EU Council's political agreement on May 18th, - the Dutch parliament called on its government to abstain (July 1st; abstention in the Council has technically the same effect as voting against) - the voting weights changed (November 1st, see http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/docs/041101qm.pdf ) - the Polish government clarified that it cannot support the proposal in question (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=158 , November 16th) - all four groups in the German parliament agreed on a joint motion against the Council's proposal (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=222) Consequently, the Belgian minister of economic affairs even said last week that there was no more qualified majority in place: http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? t=233 BTW, it's not just my opinion that it would be antidemocratic if the Council took the decision in question. That was said last week by Othmar Karas MEP, who is a vice president of the largest group in the European Parliament, the conservative European People's Party (Christian Democrats) - European Democrats.

What the EU Council is trying to do is, way above and beyond the issue of software patents, an assault at democracy itself. In a democratic system based on lawfulness, a decision needs to meet the majority requirements (in this case: the requirements for a qualified majority in the EU Council) on the day of the formal decision, not more than 6 months earlier. Since the EU Council's political agreement on May 18th, - the Dutch parliament called on its government to abstain (July 1st; abstention in the Council has technically the same effect as voting against) - the voting weights changed (November 1st, see http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/docs/041101qm.pdf ) - the Polish government clarified that it cannot support the proposal in question (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=158 , November 16th) - all four groups in the German parliament agreed on a joint motion against the Council's proposal (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=222) Consequently, the Belgian minister of economic affairs even said last week that there was no more qualified majority in place: http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? t=233 BTW, it's not just my opinion that it would be antidemocratic if the Council took the decision in question. That was said last week by Othmar Karas MEP, who is a vice president of the largest group in the European Parliament, the conservative European People's Party (Christian Democrats) - European Democrats.

What the EU Council is trying to do is, way above and beyond the issue of software patents, an assault at democracy itself. In a democratic system based on lawfulness, a decision needs to meet the majority requirements (in this case: the requirements for a qualified majority in the EU Council) on the day of the formal decision, not more than 6 months earlier. Since the EU Council's political agreement on May 18th, - the Dutch parliament called on its government to abstain (July 1st; abstention in the Council has technically the same effect as voting against) - the voting weights changed (November 1st, see http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/docs/041101qm.pdf ) - the Polish government clarified that it cannot support the proposal in question (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=158 , November 16th) - all four groups in the German parliament agreed on a joint motion against the Council's proposal (http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php ?t=222) Consequently, the Belgian minister of economic affairs even said last week that there was no more qualified majority in place: http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? t=233 BTW, it's not just my opinion that it would be antidemocratic if the Council took the decision in question. That was said last week by Othmar Karas MEP, who is a vice president of the largest group in the European Parliament, the conservative European People's Party (Christian Democrats) - European Democrats.

The big news is however that the Council Presidency is basically trying to circumvent the Council itself. In May, they reached a political agreement on the most pro-software patents text seen in EU legislative circles until now. At the Council meeting in May, Poland first abstained, then Germany and the Commission introduced some fake compromise amendment, and after a break Poland was not consulted again about its position, because there was a qualified majority in place even without its support. They confirmed afterwards their position did not change because of the bogus compromise amendment.

Recently, Poland confirmed its position, after everyone in a meeting with HP, Novell, Microsoft and others confirmed that the text of the Council of Ministers allows pure software patents (contrary what is often claimed). And apart from Microsoft and the Polish Patent Lawyers association, everyone agreed that software patents would be bad for the Polish economy. Because the voting weights changed on 1 November (due to the joining of all the new member states to the EU), Poland's support suddenly became necessary and thus the qualified majority was officially broken.

Other notable events since the political agreement of May are the fact that in July the Dutch Parliament asked its government to change position from being in favour to abstention, and at the start of this month all parties of the German Parliament did the same.

So the Council currently has an ugly text on the table which is no longer supported by a qualified majority in any way, but by means of diplomatic pressure on Poland and others the Dutch presidency (lead in this case by Minister Brinkhorst) is trying everything it can to push it through nevertheless.

Here is a list of patent application numbers:

http://kwiki.ffii.org/?CommerceOne

I think basically they have a load of US patents, and the applications above are the EU applications for the equivalent of what they already have in the US.

A search on the USPTO database for that company and those inventors would probably yield a list of the Commerce One patents.

I think some of them are going to be big-bucks patents too, sadly.

European Patent News: European Council's bad 18th May "agreement" seems to have come unstuck:

http://nosoftwarepatents.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php? t=233

Oh dear. This might mean the EU doesn't get swpat after all.... ;)

The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:

Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.

The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.

The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:

Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.

The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.

The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:

Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.

The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.

The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:

Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.

The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.

The image put out by the NoSoftwarePatents.com organization is detrimental to the cause:

Has anyone looked at the immature banners that are provided by NoSoftwarePatents.com? The European banner is misspelled: Europe's better off without software patents. Learn the difference between a contraction and a possessive before making banners to be distributed around the world. The other notable one is "Stop the patent mafia!" That may be a valid analogy, but it is so childish that no one will take it seriously. Then, a barely readable sign surrounded by flowers.

The advocates of this side tend to cite naive outrageous one-sided claims, then wonder why businessmen and politicians don't get the message. Some of the over-hyped Slashdot headines serve as good examples. Pictures of students protesting isn't going to sway anyone's opinion. Try a picture of a company losing money because everything they try to do is covered by some trivial patent.

Some of us looked at the linked URL, saw what was wrong, corrected the problem, and then RTFA. No shit Sherlock! http://nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/index.html

Um, the link in the posting is broken. Amazing that so many comments about it have already appeared.

Broken! --> http://slashdot.org/NoSoftwarePatents.com

Works! --> http://nosoftwarepatents.com