On Wed, 2005-03-23 at 08:49 +1200, Gavin Denby wrote:
The public comment period for proposed amendments to the Patents Act expired on March 11, “so a meeting is now the best way we have of communicating with the politicians and telling them what the issues are,” says NZOSS president Peter Harrison.
I'm afraid even that deadline was a little late. I looked into this at the start of March. The deadline for public submissions on reviewing NZ's patent policy was 26 July, 2002. This recent deadline (11 March, 2005) was for public submissions on the draft legislation that they have written up, ie to say whether or not the draft legislation matches up to/implements the findings of the review. I think it is a bit late to be making submissions on exactly what is/isn't patentable. Quote from the Ministry of Economic Development: "The purpose of consulting on the draft Bill is not to repeat or re-open the policy development process. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that the detail of patent legislation can have important implications for those that deal with the patent system." This is all online: http://www.med.govt.nz/buslt/int_prop/patentsreview/index.html Read this to see what the policy review thinks about software patents: http://www.med.govt.nz/buslt/int_prop/patentsreview/discussion/patentsreview... It doesn't look good. John