An opportunity to oppose European software patents

"Many times during recent months and years, you have publicly expressed your concern about monopoly dangers in the software area. This month, at the Berlin kartell conference, you mentioned Microsoft as an example and correctly stated that it is not the size of the company but the dominance of communication interfaces which is dangerous. You reassured us that your establishment is keeping a close eye on this danger.

"Unfortunately there seem to be some colleagues in the EU who do not share your danger consciousness. They are currently planning measures which can only result in aggravating the anti-competitive tendencies of the software industry and its heavy bias in favor of very few, mainly American, software giants.

"On June 24th a legislative proposal is to be presented at the Intellectual Property Conference in Paris, according to which a US-like "software patent" system is to be introduced in Europe."

Complete letter and opportunity to add your signature.

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Richard Stallman -- Saving Europe from Software Patents