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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Protest on European Software Patents: David A. Wheeler's Personal Home Page</title>
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.ico" type="image/x-icon">
<meta name="description" content="Stop Software Patents">
<meta name="generator" content="vim">
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<body>
<h1>Stop European Software Patents</h1>
<div id="content">
<p>
Stop European software patents!
This website, like many others, is protesting an unwise EU effort
to patent software.
A critical vote is coming up Wednesday, 2005-07-06.
Please urge the EU Parliament to implement the
Buzek-Rocard-Duff amendments to save Europe from the absurdity
of software patents.
<p>
<b>Please read this information before going on to my main page</b>.
<p>
<a href="innovation/innovation.html#patents">
There is a vast amount of evidence that software patents
harm software developers and software users</a>.
For example,
<a href="http://www.researchoninnovation.org/patent.pdf">
Bessen and Maskin demonstrated that as U.S. software patentability went up,
software innovation went down (in contrast with the rest of industry)</a>.
If software patents were permitted,
<a href="http://webshop.ffii.org/">typical webstores would become illegal</a>.
When the
<a href="http://www.ffii.org.uk/ftc/ftc.html">U.S. Federal Trade Commission
examined software patents</a>, they found that
"Many panelists and participants expressed the view that
software and Internet patents are impeding innovation.
They stated that such patents are impairing follow-on incentives,
increasing entry barriers, creating uncertainty that harms incentives
to invest in innovation, and producing patent thickets."
<a href="http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/consultations/annexc.htm">
UK proposal respondants overwhelmingly disapproved of software patents.</a>
Software development has proceeded quite well without
the imposition of patents, so there's no problem that needs "fixing".
<p>
Because patents harm software development and impede innovation, a <a
href="http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/pv2?PRG=CALDOC&FILE=20030924&LANGUE=EN&TPV=DEF&LASTCHAP=31&SDOCTA=2&TXTLST=2&Type_Doc=ANNEX&POS=1">democratically voted decision</a> of the European
Parliament on September 24, 2003 determined to not allow
unlimited software patenting.
This has the support of more than <a
href="http://petition.eurolinux.org">300,000 citizens</a>,
and dozens of professional <a
href="http://www.researchineurope.org/policy/patentdirltr.htm">economists</a>
and <a
href="http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/eubsa-swpat0202/komp0305/index.en.html">scientists</a>.
<p>
Nevertheless,
the European <a
href="http://swpat.ffii.org/players/bolkestein/index.en.html">Commission</a>
and the <a
href="http://swpat.ffii.org/papers/europarl0309/cons0401/index.en.html">Council
of Ministers</a> are overrode the EU parliament
to permit essentially unlimited patentability of software,
thanks to heavy lobbying by patent lawyers.
Then, through a series of possibly illegal actions, they've created
a situation where a mere majority isn't enough to reach a
reasonable result.
If they succeed,
this extreme policy will inhibit innovation and competition, and
cause great harm to both software developers and software users.
</p>
<a href="http://nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/app0411.html">
Linus Torvalds, Michael Widenius and Rasmus Lerdorf
have written an appeal to the EU Council against
software patents in Europe.</a>
Their letter reveals:
"The draft directive in question is deceptive because it leads laymen, and even
those legal professionals who are not familiar with the intricacies of patent
law, to falsely believe that it would exclude software from patentability.
However, it is actually a compilation of the entirety of the excuses with
which the patent system has, for many years, been circumventing article 52 of
the European Patent Convention in order to grant patents on software ideas."
</p>
<p>
Please see
<a href="http://dwheeler.com/essays/software-patents.html">
Eliminate Software Patents</a>,
<a href="http://nosoftwarepatents.com/">NoSoftwarePatents.com</a> and
the
<a href="http://www.ffii.org">FFII</a>
for more information on the problem, and how you can stop it.
Please do what you can to stop this unwise idea from becoming law.
</p>
<p>
<font size="+3">
<a href="index2.html">
Continue on to my website >>></a>
</font>
</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>