On Monday 24 May 2004 11:11 am, John Seago wrote:

I used the Web mail available on the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat Party sites, and the contacts I found on the other party sites were: enquiries@englishdemocrats.org.uk freedom@bnp.org.uk astern@ukip.org office@greenparty.org.uk

It may be useful to find the email addresses of the individual candidates

Thanks for the info. I was thinking more of postal addresses really as from what I've read, written letters carry more weight than emails.

My understanding of the situation - and the main point I intend to make - is that the issues have already been debated in the elected European Parliament and many changes made to the original draft. These have now been thrown out by an unelected group, the Council of Ministers.

As a voter I am deeply concerned at this. I want to know what the MEP or candidate thinks of this and point out that the subject is due for further vote in the Parliament later this year.

Further: I may also point out that a thriving economy relies on establishing many small businesses which can grow. Software Patents will give all the power to the big companies which have the finances to afford patent lawyers.

Patenting an idea means that other people cannot even use the idea - for example, imagine in the field of literature that it were possible to patent the idea of 'a mysterious murder is solved by means of observation and deduction carried out by an individual'. No new detective novels or new detectives - no more Wycliffes (perhaps not a loss but you get my drift).

Clearly this legislation will benefit established corporations - primarily from outside of the EU - and stifle economic growth in the European software industry.

(Something like that, anyway, these are my first rough ideas).

Syd