On Wed, Oct 18, 2000 at 10:22:56AM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts,
John P . Looney thought:
> On Tue, Oct 17, 2000 at 11:45:53PM +0200, Peter Toft mentioned:
> > You may also like to read
> > http://www.sslug.dk/artikler/no_to_software_patents.html> > If you want to use that for your newspapapers in
> > Ireland feel free - spread the word before it is too
> > late. Do your very best - we have less than 1.5 month
> > before the law is changed in Europe!!!
>> What may be the best thing to do is to
>> 1) Find out who/where the Patent Office head is
> 2) Find his office (Kilkenny was mentioned)
> 3) Call in, with the ILUG position on it, with some names
>
Head of the Patent Office is
Sean Fitzpatrick
Patent Office Controller
051 20101
but the real mover and shaker is
Dr Jacob Rajan
Principal Patent Examiner
Dept of Enterprise Trade and Employment
Kildare Street,
Dublin 2
01 6312121 ext 2482
Had an extensive chat with him. His position is that the current wording
of the Munich Convention *allows* software patents already but because of
the wording, leads to confusion and misinterpretation. The proposed
change is to remove the words "computer programs" from the list of things
which are not patentable since they are permitted in the next paragraph of
the convention document. The change is intended to make the intention
of the document more transparent and less open to misinterpretation.
He also says he is the person to whom we should make our representations
and that stuff directed to Mary Harney will get passed on to him anyhow.
He says that he has not heard anything from *any* group opposed to
software patents at all though he has heard from a number of groups
interested in _having_ software patents!
He mentioned a European Commission investigation into the area of
intellectual property etc. They are inviting subbmissions from interested
parties to aid in the formulation of an EU directive on the subject. He
gave me a URL and a contact address for submissions.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internalmarket/en/intprop/indprop/index.htm
and a submission address of
hans.dosdert at cec.eu.int
I'd suggest we get something together, perhaps try to arrange a meeting
with Dr. Rajan to discuss the issue and look at the EU comission page
also.
--
Conor Daly <conor.daly at oceanfree.net>
Domestic Sysadmin :-)
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