In the 1990s, the European Patent Office created a bizarre interpretation whereby "as such" is a reference to "as programs for computers", and thus the exclusion can be completely ignored if the patent application uses a name other than "programs for computers" for the claimed idea.

Software patent law is not for the faint hearted. Now the FSF has funded a new video where top hackers and legal experts explain where the idea came from and just why it is so bad for free software. With increasing evidence that patents harm, rather then help, innovation, is the tide beginning to turn against software patents?

I write this to clarify my ideas and illustrate more precisely what happens if we actually reject the idea of intellectual property.

Microsoft may have just lost half a billion dollars for 'stealing' the idea of filling out forms and using styli on tablets

One of the enduring soap operas this year has involved the ongoing patent infringement threats by Microsoft against “Linux, OpenOffice, email, and other open source software.” According to Microsoft, 235 of its (unnamed) patents are being infringed, and it should be entitled to be paid for this use of its intellectual property.

When we get to explain our views in the plenary, we are after all speaking to 200-300 diplomats and specialist policy makers from around the world. You don’t get many opportunities to explain to such a crowd why software patents are a bad idea, or why patents in software standards must be licensed royalty-free and without restrictions on their use.

Great ideas spring up every day, but only in certain conditions are they able to bloom. Open-source software is, in fact, one of the best places for these great ideas to bloom.

"Monday, May 4th, 2009 — End Software Patents today launched en.swpat.org, a wiki to document the case against software patents. Over 100 articles have already been started to give an idea of the scope and structure of the wiki..."

What ideas does her Majesty's Treasury follow in those days to reduce costs? First they asked 600000 people working for the government about that, got 60000 ideas out of it (that equals one idea per 10 people asked), processed them and put that into 31 proposals. Two of them deal with Free Sofware.