Europe’s “unitary patent” could mean unlimited software patents

ESP ed. note: The following article by Richard Stallman was originally published in The Guardian. I’m republishing it here verbatim. For ESP’s information this topic, see the ESP wiki article Unitary patent.

Originally published in The Guardian. Re-published here with permission:
Copyright 2011 Richard Stallman
Released under the Creative Commons Attribution Noderivs 3.0 license.

Just as the US software industry is experiencing the long anticipated all-out software patent wars that we have anticipated, the European Union has a plan to follow the same course. When the Hargreaves report urged the UK to avoid software patents, the UK had already approved plan that is likely to impose them on the UK.

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EU, USA, Japan pushing for patents in ACTA!

The latest leaked ACTA document shows that the EU, USA, and Japan are pushing to extend the this draconian treaty to cover patents! This eye-popping proposal would give patent holders the power to send a cease-and-desist letters to software developers, with threats such as paying the “lost profits” of the patent holder and having the developer’s computer broken and sending the developer the bill for the destruction!

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