Earlier on we mentioned the Europe-based Blender and recently we also mentioned Microsoft’s role in pushing for software patents in Europe, using ‘proxies’ as large as the United States government. You may be interested in the following perspective on the latest Blender story.

Yesterday we alerted about the latest attempt to shove software patents into Europe. It’s a back-door technique and Benjamin has more on this subject in the following slideshow. He has also been pointing to articles such as this one because Microsoft’s appeal in Europe, he believes, is more than it seems on the surface.

European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.

" The future of software patents in Europe is uncertain. The Software Patent Directive was rejected by the European Parliament on the 6th of July 2005, after seven years of campaigning by people in FSFE and other organisations - most notably, one of our associate organisations, FFII. This was a monumental victory and displays the legislative competence of the Free Software community. However, the struggle is not over. Information about the current status of software patents in the EU can be found in this November 2007 blog entry: Do software patents exist in the EU?

The software patent issue is likely to return via initiatives such as the Community Patent or the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA)..."

"Brussels, 2nd September 2008 -- A global coalition of more than 80 software companies, associations and developers has declared the 24th of September to be the 'World Day Against Software Patents' [...] A global petition asking to effectively stop software patents worldwide will be launched on 24 September 2008, together with specific additional requests for certain regions such as Europe, the Un

"...Brussels, 13 May 2008 -- European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year.

Various fronts, some of which associated/funded by Microsoft, are pushing for software patents in Europe using at least two back doors (harmonisation; Community Patent).

This post brings a bunch of news about patents, FOSS and standards, but the scoop is Microsoft's latest push (confirmed by ECIS).

In the next seven days, both Microsoft's European Union and United States antitrust cases will reach critical junctures. A routine U.S. hearing tomorrow will likely be anything but routine. Elsewhere, an appeals court will issue a ruling on the validity of Microsoft's adverse antitrust case in Europe.