FFII News -- For Immediate Release -- Please Redistribute

See http://swpat.ffii.org/#news [ffii.org]

Now we will have to see whether the European Commission is committed to "harmonisation and clarification" or only to patent owner interests.

Yesterday's threats uttered by Bolkestein against the European Parliament suggest the latter.

The detailed results are available on our site

http://swpat.ffii.org/news/03/plen0923/ [ffii.org]

It will now be our job to help the European Parliament assert itself against attempts by Bolkestein and patent lawyers wearing the hat of national governments to crush the directive project.

The current text has some remaining contraditions in it, but basically the thrust has been turned around. It has become our directive which we must help the European Parliament to defend. This is also a question of the European Parliament's role in an emerging democratic Europe. On the whole this is very good news for the EU.

--
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance tel. +49-89-18979927
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation http://swpat.ffii.org/
270,000 votes 2000 firms against software patents http://noepatents.org/