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This is the current state of play, courtesy of AFFS:
If you've been following the European software patent story you'll know
that JURI (the committee for legal affairs) has decided to ask the
Commission to re-start the process for this particular piece of
legislation.
This hasn't stopped pro-patenters continuing to push the Council to
formalise their decision: February 17th looked like being a show-down,
with software patents again on the agenda as an "A-item" (no discussion,
no vote, just rubber stamping), the decision on restarting, and a
protest in Brussels on that day. However, both the Spanish and Dutch
Parliaments have voted on anti-software patent motions; the Dutch even
willing to block any Council vote until the decision on a restart is
taken. The German bundestag is due to vote soon on a similar motion.
Assuming the process is restarted, the draft directive will be
re-submitted to Parliament, and our work begins again. The draft may or
may not be in the same form it was submitted the first time around: it
may be better, it could be worse.
Advantages this time around: firstly, everyone is much better informed
about the issue, and there is a greater awareness of what is going on.
We practically slept through the first reading last time. Secondly,
there seems to be real discontent with pro-software patent directives,
so we have the potential for a solution even better than that proposed
by the European Parliament.
Disadvantages: we have to continue what we have been doing, and moreso.
The pro-software patent lobby will redouble their efforts, we must more
than match them. We will be keeping our patent pages up-to-date with
practical actions you can take; in particular, if you're a member of the
British Computer Society please get in touch with us.
BCS "views sought":
<http://wiki.ffii.org/Bcs0501En>
--
Neil Williams
=============
http://www.dcglug.org.uk/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/isbnsearch/
http://www.neil.williamsleesmill.me.uk/
http://www.biglumber.com/x/web?qs=0x8801094A28BCB3E3
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