Hi over there!

I guess with the speed of news at internet you already know what happend - we got 7.1% of the total result and probably two mandates when the Lissabon treaty goes into effect.

We did it. Now it´s time to start the race for the national parliament - we need 4 % next year to get in. But with the current result - we will have the finances and the organisation in place to get that done. That I am sure of.

Sincerely yours

Mika

Via Steve Silberstein the story of Clarence Saunders. He invented the self-service grocery store - a valuable and important innovation. Amazingly enough after it was successful he seems to have patented the idea. I can't find any evidence the patent had any effect for good or ill - although it doesn't seem to have kept Saunders out of bankruptcy.

Swedish Pirate Party headed to Brussels. Yet another miscalculation by the IP Monopolists - support for the Pirate Party shot up after the corrupt trial of the Pirate Bay. Corrupting judges and politicians works only as long as it is secret.

I highly recommend Kevin Carson's "'Intellectual Property': A Libertarian Critique," published by the Center for a Stateless Society. It is first-rate. So-called intellectual property is not just about rock bands "protecting" recordings. It's about big dinosaur corporations attempting to subordinate people through the control of ideas. This big issue will only get bigger in the near future, and much is at stake. Whether one realizes it or not, defense of patents and copyrights puts one on the side of the opponents of liberty.

via Mika Sjoeman the latest polling numbers. Check it for the Swedish election results in English.

The post Animal Abuse mentions the state's use of "DVD-sniffing anti-piracy dogs."

Res ipsa loquitur.

Four more days to the European Parliamentary Elections, and the Pirate Party in Sweden looks set to get at least one seat, possibly two, out of Sweden's total share of 18 seats.

It should be said, though, that the opinion polls are notoriously unreliable. In one opinion poll, 45.6% said they had not decided which party they would vote for. Some have also argued that the Pirate Party numbers are inflated since the party is supported mainly by young men, who typically don't vote to the same extent as others. On the other hand, the Pirate Party's supporters may be more motivated than others to vote in this election.

The Pirate Party's main proposals are shorter copyright lengths, abolished patents, and increased privacy protection.

Joe Mullin lists the reasons to be relatively optimistic that the Supreme Court will do the right thing in helping to reign in the abuse of patent law by at least a smidge.

Read it here.

Good news indeed.

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the very important Bilski v. Doll case which will examine the legitimacy of so-called "business method" patents and other forms of patents that are not tied to a particular machine or transformative device.

This could be the best opportunity yet for the Court to start to reign in the growing cancer that patent law has mutated into.

News summary here.

Details and filings in the case here.

Via my father Robert Levine, a New York Times article bemoaning the negative effect of investors on innovation. Funny thing is, it's mostly about how patents discourage research - but never a thought to patent reform.