he JURI comittee voted on which amendments they wanted to add last
monday. The situation now looks very bad, if the text is approved as is,
it will allow for unlimited patentability (of software components,
business methods and algorithms).

Allowing intangible things to be patented is a really bad idea (as
somebody pointed out, I could patent "anti-gravity" even though it doesnt
exist, on the offchance that one day somebody invents an anti-gravity
device, and I can then sue them). In this way, all future scientific
developments could find themselves already infringing somebody's
previously registered patent.

The same is true of algorithms, one could patent algorithms which have no
practical use yet, and pretty much halt all free software development of
new algorithms. The JURI version of the sw. patent text also mandates RAND
("Reasonable" and Non-Discriminatory) licensing; that is to say, if you
develop a new standard, you can charge people for using it, but you must
charge the same price for all licensees. Therefore, there is no way to
charge for a commercial license, and give away a free software version,
since that is "discriminatory".

There is a final chance for MEPS to add new amendments at the plenary
session (I think its July 2nd) and then at the second reading (although
the pro-patent lobby are trying to avoid this step). Thus it is vital
right now to contact your MEP and ask them to vote for amendments which
will stop patenting of pure software, algorithms, and standards.


If the current proposal is passed, I think the result will be disastrous
for Free Software, after all, who will publish even a single line of code
when by doing so they could be sued for unknowingly infringing somebody's
patent ?


Regards,
Gabriel.