Re: [Fsfe-uk] Software patents

[James Heald]

Phil Driscoll wrote:

> I recently emailed my (labour) MEP regarding software patents.
>
> Below is his response. If anyone who is more clued up about this issue than I 
> am has ideas for a suitable response, please let me know.

Phil,

Could you tell us which Labour MEP ?

Although the Labour group is disciplined, it is not monolithic;
also, in the wider European Socialist Group there is an all-out tug of 
war going on between Arlene McCarthy and Michel Rocard of France, which 
came to a head at their group meeting in Strasbourg last week.  The PSE 
eventually decided they would have to set up a policy sub-committee to 
decide what they are going to think.

So our belief is that some Labour MEPs may be less ready than others to 
follow McCarthy unthinkingly.

Whilst welcoming some of the goals expressed in the letter, the devil is 
in the details; and (as Xavi's analysis describes), the amendments 
proposed by McCarthy and accepted by the Internal Market committee would 
not achieve these goals, but in fact would have a contrary effect, 
opening the floodgates to more patents, both for Amazon one-click style 
business methods, and for pure software techniques, software interfaces 
and aspects of user-interface design.