Help defeat the proposed EU software patents!

• Sign the petition
• Link to the petition site and urge others to sign it
• Write to your MEP, the easiest way to find out who they are is to Google your area and the phrase “Member European Parliament”, like this

I’m writing to each of the MEPs for Hammersmith and Fulham. There follows the text of my email but it’s a bunch of crap hacked together too quickly by stealing bits of the petition.eurolinux.org site and a few others. Do your own one better than me!

Dear <MEP>,

I am writing to you because I am concerned by current plans to legalise software patents in Europe despite the damaging effect on innovation and competition.

I am a resident of Fulham and a software developer myself. Software patents prevent me from exploring my ideas fully and creating derivative works which further the knowledge of the community, both in my work and in the greater context of the IT industry worldwide. It acts contrary to the public interest and provides another avenue to increase the power held by large private corporations. These corporations are the economic powerhouses of Europe, but they must not be allowed to stop or slow the advancement of knowledge.

Current EU law expressly prohibits patents on computer programs. Patents are often abused to prohibit or restrict the dissemination of computer programs and intellectual methods in other parts of the world, e.g. the US.

I can not express the ramifications of this decision as well as some of my friends and so I urge you to consider the following websites and articles:

Phil Salin’s letter to the US PTO

http://philsalin.com/patents.html

Free patents, protecting innovation & competition in the IT industry

http://www.freepatents.org/

The EuroLinux petition site, with well over 200,000 signatures

http://petition.eurolinx.org

Thanks for your time,

Ben