<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 TRANSITIONAL//EN">
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; CHARSET=UTF-8">
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="GtkHTML/3.0.9">
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<TT>Dear FFII (aktiv.ffii.org) supporter,<BR>
<BR>
Friday, September 24, is the first anniversary of the<BR>
plenary vote by the European Parliament that stopped the<BR>
EU Commission's push towards unlimited patentability.<BR>
The Parliament also reaffirmed the limits imposed by the<BR>
European Patent Convention, and expressed the will and the<BR>
deliberate position of the democratic (and "economic") majority<BR>
in the text of the directive.<BR>
<BR>
The European Parliament was the first institution in the<BR>
path of EU legislation that was not dominated by players from<BR>
the patent establishment. It was the first institution that<BR>
took the concerns of more than 250,000 petitioners (currently<BR>
around 350,000), thousands of European SMEs, a number of recent<BR>
economic studies as well as the opinions of dozens of famous<BR>
scientists into account.<BR>
<BR>
The European Parliament fulfilled its task of democratic<BR>
decision-making so thoroughly that subsequently the patent<BR>
operatives from the Council working group had to reveal their<BR>
exactly opposing intent. They did so with unprecedented<BR>
effrontery, by removing all essential amendments introduced<BR>
by the Parliament, adding extremist counter amendments,<BR>
and using a very dubious voting procedure for their counter<BR>
proposal on May 18, 2004, in order to produce the semblance<BR>
of a qualified majority.<BR>
<BR>
We ask you to show your support for the position adopted by the<BR>
EP by announcing September 24 as a Day of European Democracy.<BR>
You can do this by including a hyperlinked banner on your web<BR>
page(s). See <A HREF="http://en.eu.ffii.org/sections/eu_democracy_day"><U>http://en.eu.ffii.org/sections/eu_democracy_day</U></A><BR>
for details.<BR>
<BR>
If your national government is still officially supporting<BR>
the Council version of the directive, you could also use this<BR>
event to renew contacts to your national MPs, request personal<BR>
meetings, and ask them to put a debate on the EU software<BR>
patent directive on the national parliament's agenda.<BR>
<BR>
No government should support the Council's anti-Parliament<BR>
course without legitimation by its national parliament.<BR>
Every little step towards this goal has substantial permanent<BR>
value. The EU Democracy Day page mentioned above contains<BR>
some related pointers.<BR>
<BR>
Yours sincerely,<BR>
<BR>
Holger Blasum, Bernhard Kaindl, Christian Cornelssen</TT>
</BODY>
</HTML>