The European Parliament just announced [5] an exceptional meeting of the legal affairs (JURI) committee on Monday November 19th, 2012 at 7pm for the only purpose of discussing the unitary patent [6] package. This new unexpected event in the unitary patent saga is a concern. There is an urgent need to get in touch with the MEPs to let them know about the threats of the unitary patent.
There has been rumors of compromises in the past months and the meeting scheduled for next Monday seems to indicate that a solution was found, although nothing has been made public yet. However, as pointed out in our report about this event [7], there are indications that this compromise is not going to be in compliance with the European law. In addition, such a compromise is likely to further reduce the ability of the parliament to define patenting boundaries, therefore legalizing software patents.
It is urgent, more than ever, to inform members of the european parliament about the dangers of the unitary patent and why software patents are a threat to innovation and freedom to write programs. A tool to help contact MEP [8] is available, allowing every citizen to get in touch with them, free of charge. The platform [8] also contains helpers to convince them : explanations, dialog samples, … Companies are also invited to sign the resolution written by April to express their opposition to the current project [9].