[Fsfe-uk] UKIP: More than usually patently mad - software patents fudge is a minefield

[James Heald]

Press Release from UKIP, who were going to be at the Stallman talk on 
Friday, but Damian Hockney's car broke down on his way back from being 
on the BBC's Question Time from Sheffield the night before.  So they 
sent this on Friday instead.
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MORE THAN USUALLY PATENTLY MAD - SOFTWARE PATENTS FUDGE IS A MINEFIELD

The UK Independence Party opposes the latest changes to the Directive. 
"We believes that software patents are a barrier to competition, freedom 
of expression and economic development," says MEP candidate for London 
Damian Hockney.

"The party also believes that such changes should not be forced on 
member states."

Lobbying by big organisations and effective monopolies to protect their
positions always seem to get the greatest hearing within the European 
Union, and the politicians involved from member states have in many 
cases been stumbling around bewildered speaking for positions they 
neither understand nor know how to express.

For the UK Independence Party, the process over software patenting is an
example of everything that is worst about the process of decision making 
and lobbying within the institutions of the European Union. The wrong 
decisions are made by the wrong people, acting on partial information by 
those who do not understand what they are talking about. In many cases, 
they fix agreements specifically against the desires of the parliaments 
they allegedly represent. Misleading language has found its way into the 
rules.

U-turns are made in secret amid a background of backroom dealing.
Accountability is simply overridden, and then the ultimate outcome is 
forced onto the statute books of nations who may be specifically opposed 
to the measures.

You simply have to look at some of the actions of the European Patents
Office against the spirit of previous rules to see where these 
developments will lead to.

As with the European Arrest Warrant, the issue of software patents 
strikes at the heart of liberty, competition and free markets: 
inevitably this process will lead to the entrenchment of monopoly, 
higher prices, stagnant development in the EU, the displacement of the 
best and brightest to nations outside the EU and an end to small firms 
being able to compete in the market.

Cynics might suggest that some aspects of this were not side issues but 
the actual intent.

Attempting now to influence national governments is surely an example of
doing things back to front, but it appears to be the main hope. It is 
doubly ironic that many of the monopolies and big lobbyists attempted to 
claim that any one who would not support the changes had somehow ruled 
themselves out of the democratic process by opposing the European 
Commission's desires.

More than usually patently mad, even for the EU.


Damian Hockney, UK Independence Party, 109-110 Bolsover St, London W1W 
5NU - tel 020 7631 3757.