Re: [Patents] UK Liberal Democrats anti-patent IT policy ratified

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> The party's IT policy at http://www.makeitpolicy.org.uk, which includes a
> paragraph opposing swpat, was ratified by party conference on Sunday 16

I can only find a sentence in

        http://www.makeitpolicy.org.uk/Motion.html

calling for "supporting widespread innovation by resisting the wider
application of patents in this area".

wider than than what?

what is "this field" ?

The EPO/UKPO also says it is against "widening patentability" [ beyond
what the EPO/UKPO is already doing now ].

If "this field" is "software", then the above could mean that patents must
be available in the field of software, only not to a wider extent than
granted currently by the EPO/UKPO.

Thus this statement could be interpreted as obliging the liberal democrats
to exactly nothing.  It is in that respect similar to other statements
made by political parties, e.g. by the german liberals whose media
spokesman later occasionally promoted software patents.

There is a reference to a more detailed policy paper on this page.
Is that paper online yet ?  Is it more specific ?

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
140,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/