The October agenda of the Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee of the European Parliament has been published [5]. A discussion on the unitary parent is planned for the 11th of October, from 10:45 to 12:00. It is thus the moment to mobilise and to inform MEPs on the threat of the return of software patents, before new decisions are taken on the future of the regulation.
April has been mobilizing for several months on the project of unitary patent [6], as the current terms of the regulation reopen the door to software patents: in fact, it is characterized by the absence of any democratic safeguard, leaving a small group of unelected specialists the opportunity to decide what is patentable and what is not. To preserve the freedom to code and the rights of users, publishers, developers of free software, the European Parliament must clearly state in the text that the legislative bodies are the only ones to decide on the scope of patentability.
Unfortunately, the text is still seen as mainly technical by many MEPs, who may be satisfied to only address the issues stemming from the change brought to the text by last summer's Summit of Heads of State and Government [7], without dealing with these critical issues.
It is thus essential to continue to be mobilized and to inform them of the threat of the unitary patent, by contacting them directly by email and by phone. ?Contact tools? are still at your disposal on the unitary-patent.eu [8] website. Feel free to use them!