"Software-Patents" in Europe: The threat prevails

[Danielsd]

I jsut read something very interesting. Perhaps you did it 1010010 milions years ago but that doenst matter. What do you thing for it:

"Software-Patents" in Europe: The threat prevails

Soon the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers will again decide about the legalisation and adoption of so-called "software patents" in Europe, which are already used by large companies in other countries to put competitors out of business. This can lead to the termination of many software projects such as KNOPPIX, at least within Europe, because the holders of the over 30,000 already granted "software patents" (currently without a legal foundation) can claim exclusive rights and collect license fees for trivial things like "progress bars", "mouseclicks on online order forms", "scrolling within a window" and similar. That way, software developers will have to pay the "software-patentholders" for using these features, even in their own, completely self-developed applications, which can completely stall the development of innovative software for small and medium companies. Apart from this, the expense for patent inquiries and legal assistence is high, for even trying to find out if the self-developed software is possibly violating "software-patents", if you want to continue to market your software. Contrary to real patents, "software-patents" are, in the draft proposed by the commission, monopolization of business ideas and methods, even without any tangible technical implementation.

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html


The poor Linux is it finished with it???

[Danielsd]

No one interested?

[the_JinX]

Very interested even..

And if you want to do something about it.. check out:

Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
Logic Patents in Europe
Defend the European Parliament's Directive!
Protecting Innovation from the Threat of Software Patents

[Danielsd]

Oh, It is good to see that I'm not the only person who cares for that. I read that articals one week ago. But if you didn't: you have to! And also sing support!