Re: [Australia-public-discuss] Write a letter to ACIP?

[Jacob Stanley]

That definitely looks like a good start, we should amend it to include
the points that Ciaran brought up about the software community being
unaware of the review, and also address it to ACIP. We may still have
an opportunity to affect their decision as the final report to the
government is not due until July*.

* http://www.acip.gov.au/reviews.html

On Sat, May 15, 2010 at 11:12 AM, Ben Sturmfels <address@hidden> wrote:
> On Sat, 2010-05-15 at 12:55 +1000, Alex Fraser wrote:
>> I agree, the letter would be better if signed by more people. I would
>> sign it, and I can ask my boss if he would sign on behalf of the
>> company.
>
> Perhaps we could write a letter explaining the situation as Ciaran
> mentioned and accompany it with a petition signed be as many Australian
> software people as we can muster.
>
> I drafted the following petition a couple of weeks ago and am happy to
> make arrangements to arrange a website to accept responses.
>
> See what you think:
>
> ====
> Dear Minister,
>
> I understand that patent law is intended to benefit society by
> encouraging innovation. I believe though, that allowing software patents
> is in fact harmful to society:
>
> 1. The software industry has a long history of innovating without
> software patents. This shows that the expense of implementing the
> software patent system is unnecessary.
>
> 2. Small developers are discouraged from innovating because it is not
> viable to search software patents nor defend themselves against patent
> lawsuits.
>
> 3. Due to rapid evolution of the software industry, the 20 year lifetime
> of a software patent renders a technique essentially useless to society.
>
> 4. The primary benefactors of software patents are the legal industry
> and companies who's sole business model is to amass software patents and
> sue others (known as "software trolls"). These costs are borne by
> software developers and society.
>
> I therefore urge the Australian Government to abolish software patents.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Name:
> Email:
> Occupation:
> ====
>
>
>