Ramanraj K said on Thu, Mar 24, 2005 at 06:58:22AM +0530,:

It was finally the Left that saved the day! Our thanks are due the Members of Parliament for restoring the status quo in respect of computer programs.

With all due respects to the efforts and the results, this is only half the battle. It now turns out that what are obviously s/w patents _are_ being issued. It seems that the trickis to draft the patent application in such a way as to evade the guidelines issued by the controller.

This deserves a deeper study.

On Thursday 24 Mar 2005 6:58 am, Ramanraj K wrote:

The Patents (Amendments) Bill was passed in the Parliament,

after

dropping clauses 3(k) and 3(ka) relating to computer

programs,

restoring the status quo. Computer programs are outside the

purview

of patentability.

http://pib.nic.in/release/release.asp?relid=8096

<quote> It is proposed to omit the clarification relating to patenting

of

software related inventions introduced by the Ordinance as

Section

3(k) and 3 (ka). The clarification was objected to on the ground

that

this may give rise to monopoly of multinationals.

</quote>

FSF India lead an active campaign against the Patents

(Amendments)

Ordinance that introduced patentability for embedded software,

under

the leadership of Richard Stallman, Nagarjuna, Arun and others

here.

Holger Blasum, Christian Beauprez, and others at ffii.org made a

big

difference in strengthening the campaign.

Prabir Purkhayasta of Delhi Science Forum and Kiranchandra also helped in lobbying for this. we should also record our thanks to them. And also of course to Ramanraj who drafted our statement after lot of research.

Nagarjuna

21 March 2005 -- David Hammerstein, Member of the European Parliament, sent a letter to the Indian Members of Parliament on the subject of the patentability of software, which is subject of a bill tabled in the Indian Parliament on 18 March by Minister for Commerce & Industry Shri Kamal Nath.

Read the letter here http://wiki.ffii.org/Hammerstein050321En

We should send a letter of thanks to the Hon'ble Member of the European Parliament, Mr. David Hammerstein, on the FSF India letter head. Thanks are also due to Holger Blasum, Christian Beauprez, and all the others at ffii.org who made a big difference in strengthening the campaign. Richard Stallman relentlessly and forcefully campaigned against the change, travelled all through India in Feb 2005 speaking against the danger, and also meeting as many leaders as possible to avoid the disaster. There is no way we can thank RMS except by assisting the campaign by FSF against "sofware patents", wherever it is practised.

Regards, Ramanraj.