I assume people saw his letter re software patents?
Comments & Letters, p15
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David Golden writes:
I assume people saw his letter re software patents? Comments & Letters, p15
nope, I'm in the US, and the Letters page is subscriber-only content. any chance of the text? ;)
- --j.
On Sat, 12 Jun 2004, Justin Mason wrote:
David Golden writes:
I assume people saw his letter re software patents? Comments & Letters, p15
nope, I'm in the US, and the Letters page is subscriber-only content. any chance of the text? ;)
Here it is hand typed, so any spelling errors are my own:
Madam - The recent decision by EU industry ministers under the chairmanship of the Tanaiste, Mary Harney, to reject nearly all of the European Parliament's amendments to the controversial software patents draft directive proposed by the Commission in 2002 is deeply regrettable.
On May 17th-18th the EU's Competitiveness Council caved in to intensive industry lobbying and turned down 99 of the 120 amendments tabled by the European Parliament last September.
It was deeply disappointing, but not surprising, that the Irish Government did not vote against this move, like the Spanish, or abstain like the Italian, Austrian and Belgium governments.
The parliament's vote last year was very clear - against the patenting of software /per se/ but for strict interpretations and criteria for genuine inventions.
Thankfully, the decision by the Tanaiste and the industry ministers is not the final word. The new European Parliament will return tho this issue in the autumn.
Yours, etc.
PROINSIAS DE ROSSA, MEP Vice-President, Socialist Group, European Parliament.
He probably thought that it would get printed before the election, ah well...
<rory>