THE multinationals from the US, namely Intel, IBM (as covered before), and of course Microsoft, have been lobbying for software patents in New Zealand. According to news from the site which is dedicated purely to fighting software patents, "[o]n May 7th and June 8th, 2010, Microsoft and IBM met privately with members of New Zealand's Ministry of Economic Development (MED). They claim to have convinced the Ministry to abandon plans to exclude software from patentability in the proposed Patents Bill.

"IBM should be chastised for doing what it's doing right now.""There was also a private exchange of emails between the MED and Microsft, IBM, and the Business Software Alliance in the month before and after the meeting, where those three organisations submitted policy documents."

IBM should be chastised for doing what it's doing right now. Only if public pressure mounts will IBM recede from these positions that also the BSA is pushing. We thought that IBM had dumped the BSA last year (or the year before that). ⬆