We are protesting against software patents in Europe!

The European Commission and the Council of Ministers are covertly pushing for unlimited patentability of software, heavily lobbied by multinationals and patent lawyers. They are ignoring the democratically voted decision of the European Parliament from 24 september 2003, which has the support of more than 300.000 citizens, 2.000.000 SMEs, dozens of economists and scientists.

Most software will become illegal to use in Europe if this dangerous directive is adopted without proper amending.

This could impact us as well as many other websites, e-businesses and people around Europe: eg. a webshop is patented, the images on this site in JPG and GIF format are patented, the mp3 format is patented, ordering a ringtone for your cellphone is patented, …

A clear minefield as we could get sued for using patented ideas (that we don’t know are patented) or having to pay a lot of royalties … leading eventually to abandonning this website due to too high costs!

Join the demonstration in the streets of Brussels on 14 april 2004!

• April 12,2004
• patents