Summary: Opportunities remain for blocking or abolishing software patents in some key English-speaking countries

THE STRUGGLE to eliminate software patents before they spread further and become an international norm is perhaps in Obama's hands. Despite corporate sponsorship he will need to listen to the people, who clearly reject software patents and speak out about it [1, 2] after they voted him into office.

The White House still has a petition against software patents, but will it be answered? There are yet more new articles about it. One latest example says:

The petition has more than 12,000 signatures, which puts it among the top 10 petitions on the White House website.

In a separate post we will cover the latest situation in Europe and on Sunday we wrote about the latest situation in Australia, on which the FFII's president comments as follows:

10 days left to file answers to the Australian Consultation to get rid of software patents over there...

This is even in Slashdot, but not quite receiving the level of attention it deserves.

Then there is the New Zealand situation with regards to software patents.. IDG warns that:

In August HP started the process of acquiring Autonomy for $US10billion; the fourth largest ever software/services acquisition in history. Its interest in the company “says a lot about what our competitive strengths are, as well as our intellectual property”, says Autonomy’s Australia/NZ managing director Dean Maher. The company has 170 patents across advanced knowledge management and search of structured, unstructured and semi-structured data, he says – casting a sidelight on the local debate over the value of software patents.

Not a pleasant thought. In the next few posts we'll show the relevance to Free software. ⬆