EU lader Microsoft skrive EU´s patentdirektiv!!

[Anne Østergaard <sslug@sslug>]

Subj: EU lets Microsoft write its Patent Directive 
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

Yesterday the European Commission published a draft for legalising
american style software patents in Europe.  This draft was written by
an american association dominated by Microsoft.  The press releases of
the Commission say the opposite of what is actually written in the
Directive Proposal.  Upon reading this proposal you will find that it
amounts to the following:

- Introduction of unlimited patentability of *all* ideas, including
  the rules for operating a media business
- Legalising of 30000 patents on "computer-implementable inventions"
  (i.e. abstract rules of the most trivial kind, disguised in
  computing jargon), granted by the European Patent Office
  against the letter and spirit of the written law 
- massive theft of intellectual property (including copyright and
  business secret) from software creators in Europe, creation of a 
  climate of legal terror, transfer of several billion EUR to the
  group that is pushing the directive proposal
- slowing down of software innovation in Europe -- this is the
  common conclusion to which *all* economic studies, even those
commissioned
  by the patent establishment, have come.
- removal and weakening of elementary rights of citizens in the
  information society
   
These far reaching maneuvres in Brussels deserve your attention.  Your
readers will appreciate it, and the time is NOW.

All the details can be found through

    http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/papri/eubsa-swpat0202/

I would be most grateful if you could forward this information to
interested colleagues and contact me by phone any time.

If you want to be regularly informed about the subject, please
subscribe to the FFII/Eurolinux software patents news mailing list
by clicking

        http://lists.ffii.org/mailman/listinfo/news

Thank you for your attention

Yours sincerely

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII e.V. and Eurolinux Alliance, tel +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       
http://swpat.ffii.org/
100,000 sigs + 300 firms against software patents  
http://www.noepatents.org/

-----------------------
Anne
-- 
Anne Østergaard, sslug@sslug http://www.sslug.dk