[Patents] [FSF] Looking for specific cases where software patents hurt free software

[Laurent Guerby guerby@acm.org]

> From: Richard Stallman 
> Subject: Looking for specific cases where software patents hurt free 
> software 
> To: info-gnu@gnu.org 
> Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2000 10:00:08 -0700 (MST) 
> 
> [Please repost this widely wherever appropriate]
> 
> We would like to collect information about cases where free software
> has been harmed by software patents--that is, cases where a free
> program has been withdrawn from use or interfered with, or where a
> feature was taken out or never written in the first place, because of
> the danger of a patent.
> 
> We hope to use this information to argue against the system of
> software patents, especially in Europe where the question has become
> a live political issue (see www.freepatents.org).
> 
> If you know of such a case, please write to patent-examples@gnu.org
> and tell us what happened.
> 
> Ideally we would like to know the name of the program, its developer's
> name and email address or other coordinates, what happened to the
> program, and the patent number.  If you know those things, please
> include them in your report.  But if you don't have all of that
> information, please write anyway and tell us whatever you know.  For
> instance, if you can tell us how to contact the program's developer,
> we can probably get the rest of the information from the developer.
> If you can tell us just the program's name, we may be able to find the
> developer.  We may write back to you to try to get more details; even
> leads for getting more details may be useful.
> 
> Please send your information to patent-examples@gnu.org rather than to
> me personally, so that we can collect the responses efficiency.