Soft target for patents

May 28, 2004 6:15 AM

Euro software patent action. How can software patents become a boon, rather than a bane? Euro-mefites contact your MEP to have your say! Act now rather than snarking later!
Friday flash bonus: Hey! Hey! 16k
Via ntk
posted by asok (4 comments total)

I did look for the 'other side' of the debate to balance the tone of the post, but those intarweb savvy campaigners seem to have all your base belonging to them. Found no mention of what benefits this change in legislature would bring, other than:

"Such patents aided "in particular the growth of small and medium enterprises and independent software developers," she wrote, citing a study on the issue carried out for the European Parliament by London's Intellectual Property Institute."

Which isn't exactly convincing me that the same 'independent software developers' (sic) are misguided in opposing the proposed laws.
So, mefi patent mavens, are these tech-activists right to be concerned for the future?
posted by asok at 6:25 AM on May 28, 2004

Fantastic Flash Bonus!
posted by seanyboy at 6:33 AM on May 28, 2004

I'm against software patents and all, but all I really want to know is which party's for them and which is against them and vote accordingly; not so easy when MEPs subbornly remain distant shadowy figures, more the stuff of folklore and rumour than actual representatives with, y'know, policies that are made public and everything.

It would appear from what I've managed to glean from the ether, regarding UK parties, that only the Green party has a committed stance against software patents (with the Lib Dems saying they're bad but voting for them all the same).

All this lobbying is a little too involved for me, especially when MEPs round here seem to just appear at voting time (via their name on a ballot form) and retreat into the great beyond shortly thereafter.

I guess I'll be voting Green, but resenting that my vote will legitimise this barely-democratic political juggernaught, with a barely secret, though not openly and honestly stated (and incrementally implemented) policy of swallowing all of its member countries within its belly, and creating a single European state, its parliament even more remote, more unaccountable and less democratic than the UK parliament already is.
posted by Blue Stone at 10:19 AM on May 28, 2004

Nah, I'll stick to simply not snarking later. I did my bit for getting all vocal about RIP, which was unsurprisingly passed. Politics, at the level of the individual, is a waste of time IMHO. The British political game will continue as it shall, controlled by whoever has the dullest median views. Let the European "citizens can't vote for their own EU President, but the EU will overrule your local laws anyway" Union get on with what it wants.
posted by wackybrit at 11:35 AM on May 28, 2004