The Eurolinux Letter Generator could further facilitate your work. It would moreover be recommendable to insert a few printable documents into the cover, e.g. our latest OL. Dear ... During the last few years, the European Patent Office (EPO) has granted tens of thousands of undeserved and illegal patents on programming ideas, business models, mathematical and intellectual methods. These patents are turning our working environment into a minefield and poisoning the infrastructure of the information society. Now the EPO is pressing Europe's governments to decree new laws and change old ones, so as to legalise its practise. Please use your leverage during upcoming consultations at the European level to demand that

1. article 52 of the European Patent Convention be left untouched for the time being.
2. the terms "technical character", "industrial application" and "computer program as such" be clarified in such a way, that logical processes and products (such as algorithms or software on disk) are not patentable, while a physical product with corresponding processes may be patentable, if they constitute an inventive contribution to the state of the art.
3. A broad public dialogue involving in-depth scientific studies of the impact of the patent system on the information economy and society, as recently initiated by the German Ministery of Economics and Technology, be commenced and intensified on all levels.
4. A prior art database system be built and made available publicly under OpenSource terms, so as to put SMEs in an stronger position for patent litigation at home and abroad.
5. A "right to distribute one's own informational works" and a right to interoperability be enacted at a constitutional level and be given priority over any cupidities of the European Patent Organisations.

We would feel very obliged to you if you stand up against the patent lobby and defend the public interest. Sincerely [signature]