Software Patents in the UK

Tony Blair had been busy answering petitions on the No 10 website recently and he has just replied to the one on software patents. The response is short, straight to the point and says that no patents should exist for inventions which make advances lying solely in the field of software. So in theory it's all good and it means that software patents are unenforceable in the UK. Of course, there will be a grey area for everything that is not purely software or depends on particular hardware. Mobile phones come to mind as such an example.

This is a step in the right direction. Let's hope a European directive or a future government doesn't contradict it now.

WWF-UK Climate Change Campaign

WWF-UK are currently running a climate change campaign. This campaign includes a petition to Tony Blair, that you can sign online on the campaign page and is focused on precise, achievable aims. It is always fun to petition No 10 and this is for a good cause from a well respected charity so go ahead and add your name to the list, you know it makes sense.

ID Card Petitions

Number 10 are trying an online petition system. It is currently a beta version. Of course, there are already petitions about the ID card scheme: one to scrap it and one to support it. Interestingly enough, the former currently has 4849 signatures, the latter... 4. Or if you don't care about ID cards, you can always sign the ice-cream juggling petition.