Major Blow to Opponents of Software Patents in EU

Sanity writes "According to a FFII report, and a Financial Times article, proponents of software patents have just won a significant victory against smaller software companies and open source software proponents as the EU's legal affairs committee rejected most of the effective amendments that were proposed to the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive, which is widely perceived to usher-in U.S.-style software patents in the EU. All is not yet lost as the rejected amendments can be re-tabled when the entire European Parliament has the opportunity to vote next month. If you value the freedom to code without worrying about getting sued, and you live in the EU, now is the time to take effective action." And JasonFleischer writes "Richard Stallman has a piece in The Guardian which does a nice job of explaining the problems with the EU patent directive that will be voted on next month (and for that matter software patents in general), using literary examples."

Comments

Swedish EU represants

[aliquis]

I've found the right e-mail address to all of them except one, if you want to tell them what you think, here's the addresses:

jandersson@europarl.eu.int, charlotte.cederschiold@moderat.se,
lek@europarl.e u.int, cfjellner@europarl.eu.int,
helene.goudin@telia.co m, anna.hedh@telia.com,
ehedkvist@europarl.eu.int, ghokmark@europarl.eu.int,
aibrisagic@europarl.eu. int, nlundgren@europarl.eu.int,
cmalmstrom@europarl.eu .int, carl.schlyter@mp.se,
jsjostedt@europarl.eu.int, e-b.svensson@bredband.net,
awestlund@europarl.eu. int, anders@wijkman.nu, lars.wohlin@telia.com,
inger.segelstrom@riksdagen .se, maria@liberal.se

However the inger.segelstrom@riksdagen.se wasn't valid longer, I tried with inger.segelstrom@europarl.eu.int but that failed aswell. If anyone know the right address please let me know.

Re:A constant battle

[eclectro]

No, you are wrong. What we are seeing are bad patents that are neither unique nor novel and companies abusing the patent system here in the US.

So we end up with patents like Amazon's assinine "one-click" patent, to Kodak pulling out their Wang patents against Java.

I could post links to bad software patents all day long that pretty much 'eclipse' your idea of "really good arguments".

Personally, I take a more balanced view

But the problem is that the system is so abused that it is dishonest, if not immoral. You would think that EU representatives/legal committees would recognize this, hence my parent post.

Also, I find your comment about little software companies really offensive, as many of us work for such companies and it's how we put food on the table.