So far I have had these: From UKIP:

Dear Mr Seago Thank you for this email. Mr Titford has asked me to respond. Please be re-assured that we will do all we can to oppose the patenting of software ideas.

However, to do this we will need YOUR help. We can only do this if we get a massive vote on June 10th in the European elections. That would shake the political elite to the core and make them realise that sovereignty is not theirs to give away.

Which has the benefit of being brief, concise, and probably sincere.

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This from the conservatives: "Dear Mr Seago, Thank you for your email. The European Commission published a draft Directive in February of last year as it become increasingly clear that European law on patenting software needed to be clarified. The aim of the Directive is to set out and defend the status quo in Europe following changes to the patent system in the USA and also planned for Japan. There is a clear intention across the EU Member States to see that Europe does not follow the USA and Japan in allowing widespread patent availability for software and business methods. Copyright will remain the principal method of protecting intellectual property in these cases. Conservative MEPs in the European Parliament supported the general line that the Commission took. This builds on and clarifies the existing patent law across the European Union and makes it clear that only software which forms part of a technological process will be patentable. This will allow patents to be provided for genuine technical inventions and stimulate European economic development in areas of economic strength like mobile telephony, digital television and computer controlled machine tools to name just a few possibilities. Such an approach would be compatible with national patent laws in the Member States and international treaties including TRIPS. The Directive originally proposed by the Commission set a fair test for software (deciding whether it has a technical effect) before authorising a patent. Under their proposal, any technical invention in a field outside software could have been patented and it did not make sense for technical inventions, which happened to use computers to be excluded from the system. Conservatives supported the Commission's proposal because we believe that codification of the existing position would also have avoided raising complicated issues of the validity of existing patents across Europe or allowing current unpatentable technologies to claim new patents. This would have allowed European businesses the chance to develop ideas with certainty as to their legal position. It would also have reduced the pressure from companies holding permissive American software patents that wished to gain an extension of their patent rights in Europe. We did, however, support a number of amendments to clarify the text and ensure that generic software patents were specifically excluded. The European Parliament voted on the Commission's proposal at the end of last year. It approved the principle of a clarifying directive by a substantial majority, thus moving the proposal to its next stage of negotiations between the EU Member Governments (Council) and the European Commission. The political objectives of providing the EU with a patent regime that explicitly excluded software and business processing was clearly established. However the Parliament also approved a wide range of amendments to the proposal, with the laudable intention of ensuring that patents would only be available for inventions incorporating software as party of a technical contribution. However many of these amendments would render the Directive completely unworkable and greatly restrict the scope of the original proposal. It is important to recognise that this Directive is intended to clarify the existing EU patents regime, and is not, of itself a free-standing piece of legislation. Many of the amendments would introduce new concepts into the law covering all patents and also extend patent restrictions to new ranges of products where innovations can quite justifiably, be protected at the moment. The Directive has now moved to the Council where the Governments of the Member States are amending it. Their negotiations are confidential but they are expected to propose a text close to the position which the European Commission bought forward originally and similar to the pragmatic approach which Conservatives support. We will continue to press the Commission and Council to produce a revised proposal that will achieve its political objectives, be fully compatible with existing patent law, and provide a clearly understood regime for inventions. In the next Parliament, we will not hesitate to propose further amendments that will safeguard Europe's approach to generic software patents. I hope this is helpful, Yours sincerely, Richard N"

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Having sent me a Microsoft® attachment the Labour party then sent me this:

"I am convinced of the need for EU legislation in this area. Otherwise there will be an unstoppable drift towards the patenting of computer software, as there is in the USA. Many small and medium-sized firms in the East of England have told me of their concern that patenting will restrict their ability to write new and better software without infringing the rules. But, at the same time, SMEs will benefit if the proposed Directive succeeds in establishing clear ground rules.

A uniform approach across the EU will save companies time and money in protecting their intellectual property in computer engineering and improve legal certainty.

However, MEPs also voted to limit the scope of the legislation to affect new inventions only. The Parliament also revised the Commission's definitions of computer implemented inventions to try to protect the legitimate interests of individual software writers and small firms. On a Liberal initiative, a grace period of six months is proposed to allow market testing before the filing of a patent application. Crucially, the Parliament supported amendments to ensure that patent law cannot override interoperability of systems.

In this complex area of legislation the EU is right to act with caution. It has been difficult to strike a balance between the need for license fees on the one hand and the imperative for competition on the other. The European software industry needs a better patent system than the out-dated one we have now if it is to be helped to remain creative.

Many thousands of jobs in the East of England would be affected by a heavy-handed approach to software patenting. Cambridge is Europe's biggest cluster of the software industry, so the issue is of European as well as local importance. This law will help the smart innovation for which our region is world renowned.

I will be working to ensure that nothing will be patentable in the future that is not patentable now. Patents must only be available for things that make a technical contribution to a true invention. And any EU legislation must be compatible with our international agreements.

The draft proposal is now in the hands of the Council of Ministers who are certain to seek to modify the Parliament's position in the direction of the Commission's initial proposal. Once the Council has adopted its common position the proposal will pass back to the Parliament for a second reading, before its final adoption, probably in September."

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Sid's suggestion that letters be written does have the effect that it costs them money to send a reply, however the above evidence of a prepared documents indicates that differing replies are unlikely. Further it is going to cost you, I think you may have to write to at least 30 Candidates. The main point is to make it an issue. As there is already a prepared document it would seem to me that it has already been marked up as 'an issue'. A non-stop stream of emails raising the matter will reinforce the opinion that it is an issue which a section of the voters are exercised by.