On 03/04/14 11:34, Carsten Agger wrote:
As you may or may not know, on May 25 there's a referendum in Denmark concerning whether to join the European Patent Court.
If the result of the referendum is a no, that means the new unitary patent will not be valid in Denmark.
From a free software perspective this is kind of a no-brainer: Currently, each year about 6,000 EPO patents (of all kinds) are validated in Denmark.
When the unitary patent is introduced, we can expect that number to grow to about 60,000. EPO's practices regarding software patents are very dubious, and we have no idea how the new patent court will view "computer implemented inventions"; but the whole setup is worrying.
I have co-authored an open letter to IT companies which was published on the Danish web magazine Den Fri:
http://www.denfri.dk/2014/03/softwarepatenter-aabent-brev-til-danmarks-virks...
(also available on my own blog, http://www.modspil.dk/itpolitik/softwarepatenter_og_patentdomstol___bent_bre...)
Apart from publishing it there, we have also sent it to all web bureaus in the Aarhus area and plan to send it to all small/medium software companies in Denmark.
We and many others, are also doing other things to get the no, of course.
thank you very much for your engagement, I hope it will pay out.
Fortunately, on national level, many countries inside the European Union now are aware of the damaging activities of software patents. Unfortunately, this is not yet true for the European Institutions and Lobbyists still try hard to to enforce them in Europe.
Thanks again, Erik