Open source software champions have been influential in excluding software from the scope of patents in the new Patents Bill.

While groups representing the interests of foreign companies lobby for software patents, actual computer scientists from New Zealand reject them

Head of Microsoft New Zealand steps down, New Zealand permits software patenting only with the "device" trick, and Ben Sturmfels is working to marginalise software patents also in Australia

Law firms that supported continued software patents have published critiques of the arguments put forward by those who opposed software patents and asked for an exclusion to be added to the Patent Bill. In this article Peter Harrison, vice President of the NZOSS responds.

The vague distinction between embedded and non-embedded software leaves room for Microsoft to harm Free software in New Zealand; Microsoft's software patents still pushed into GNU/Linux via Novell

"Excluding computer software from the Patents Bill is a mistake and will stifle innovation", says Chapman Tripp Partner Matt Sumpter. "I'm astonished that the Commerce Committee is recommending this change and hope that the Government will reconsider because the arguments against it are very strong", he said.

Only two countries in the world have software patents which make it impossible to freely use video codecs such as AVC (H.264). [The Wild Fox project] aims to release Firefox builds with the features previously excluded due to software patents. This software will be available to those in non-software patent encumbered countries.

The heartwarming story of Ecuador, the political opposition to software patents in New Zealand, and areas where patents stomp on people's lives

Another update from New Zealand and interesting developments from Europe, where Spain stands in Michel Barnier's way