[Fsfe-uk] FFII-UK update (software patents)

[James Heald]

New things on the FFII-UK website:

Summary of the latest situation:
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/latest.html

Extracts from the US Government FTC report, which is *devastating* about 
software patents.
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/ftc/ftc.html

Much expanded commentary on important things in the Parliament 
amendments which the Commission want to chuck out again:
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/nov2002.html

Side-by-side comparisons of the Parliament text and the Council draft text:
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/recitals.html
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/articles.html


Reminder:

The Coreper decision on how to proceed with the Directive is expected 
any day now.  We really need to get the message over to MPs this 
weekend, if we are to stop a stitch-up on November 27.

If you have already written to your MP, please write/fax again, thanking 
them for their previous prompt reply, and updating them about the 
situation.   You may also like to tell them about the FTC report and 
send them some of the extracts.

If you have not already written to your MP, we really need your help 
*this weekend*.  See:
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/latest.html
        http://www.ffii.org.uk/council.html
for the latest situation, and general advice on how to be most effective 
respectively.

As usual, please copy letters sent to
        uk-parl-sent @ ffii.org.uk
and MP replies to
        uk-parl-replies @ ffii.org.uk
It's really helpful if you could put the MP name and consituency in the 
subject line, eg "Second letter to Sue Doughty MP (Guildford)".

With the first wave of letters, we stopped the Council of Ministers 
meeting on November 10 from adopting their November 2002 draft unamended.

But unless we can stop it with another, even bigger wave of letters, the 
Commission and the EU Presidency are pushing for the Ministers to adopt 
a rushed hack of a text at their next Competitiveness Council meeting on 
November 23.

Every letter counts.  Yours could be the one that tips the scales.


All best,

        James Heald,  FFII-UK.


[Feel free to forward all or any part of this email to anywhere it could 
do some good. These four are the only groups it's been sent to, so it's 
up to you to propagate it from here].