More are coming round to an antiswpat view

["Christian Beauprez" <beauprez@beauprez.fsnet.co.uk>]

http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,9460657%5E15319%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html

 

Should Australia adopt the US approach, the interoperability of data formats would be made illegal, and the consequences of copyright and patent infringement would be escalated," an ACS spokeswoman said.  

"The former would effectively exclude open source developers from competing in the software marketplace.  

"The latter would severely limit the ability of small companies, as well as medium and large companies who do not have cross licensing agreements from competing due to the weight of compliance costs."  

The society also the provisions would increase compliance costs for internet service providers, which would affect the activities of both businesses and consumers, and argued that the issue of patents for mere descriptions of business processes – as in the case of software patents – would seriously constrain the conduct of business.