The European Parliament can stop the multinationals’ plot

Summary: More time is left for politicians to be informed of the harms of the unitary patent

THE CIRCUMSTANCES surrounding software patents in Europe will be dealt with in Techrights in the coming days, essentially by going backwards in time and researching the subject. In the mean time, however, there is a lot that can be done, e.g. communication with politicians. The unitary patent protest site writes: “On July 10th 2012, the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament has discussed about the unitary patent and how to proceed forward with the project. Following the postponement of the vote considered in plenary session, the results of the discussions are a strong criticism of the questionable way, to say the least, used by Member States to impose their modifications, along with the decision to discuss again about an hypothetical regulation on the unitary patent in September. With these last moves, the debate on provisions of the text are reopened. April calls Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to improve the text and citizen to rally in order to guarantee that fundamental rights are respected, that a genuine European Union patent is set up, and that software patents are definitively prohibited1.” (source)

If the likes of Barnier get their way, the awful outcome will be quite irreversible. Once applicants are granted patents it becomes difficult to manage the mass abolition of what they paid for,

Time is left for contacting politicians. I will do so myself very shortly. The addresses I will send this to were listed by Glyn Moody some days ago and they are:

arlene.mccarthy@europarl.europa.eu gerard.batten@europarl.europa.eu sharon.bowles@europarl.europa.eu mary.honeyball@europarl.europa.eu sajjad.karim@europarl.europa.eu rebecca.taylor@europarl.europa.eu

The text of my mail is as follows:

“Dear public representative,

“As a computer scientist and researcher, I hereby write to warn you about the untold consequences of the unitary patent. Although it is shrewdly named to convey unity and uniformity, in practice it will lend a hand to foreign corporations which strive to expand the scope of the patents (monopolies), which, among other things, cover mathematical methods, business methods, and algorithms — all of which are abstract methods that cannot be worked around. Scholoarly work consistently shows that software patents breed patent trolls and it is therefore essential that you vote against the otherwise-irreversible move. As a computer scientists I realise this would affect both developers and customers all across Europe. Voting for the unitary patent. is akin to voting for ACTA”

If you live in Europe, please contact the above people as well. █

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