If you are a concerned teacher, learner, parent, researcher, decision-maker, e-learning practitioner, developer or citizen, read this petition and more about our on-going campaign online at: http://www.noelearningpatents.info

As partner in the SIGOSSEE EU funded project we were one of the organizers of the Conference on Open Source for Education. Research and Practice, which was held on November 14-15 2005 at the OUNL in Heerlen, The Netherlands. Information about the conference: http://www.openconference.net/ At that conference we brainstormed in one last session about a pre emptive position paper on no EU software patents for e-learning. One of the main issues is, as we see it, guaranteed access to information and knowledge for all. Out of this came a petition which aims to alert European authorities and policy-makers to the dangers of software patents, and particularly to the negative impact they could have on e-learning that uses information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance education. This petition has been sent to the European Commission as an input for the “Consultation on future patent policy in Europe” on March 31st. The petition will be distributed to other European and national decision-makers to raise awareness on the issue of EU-wide software patents and how they threaten to inhibit innovation among European e-learning developers and practitioners. If you are a concerned teacher, learner, parent, researcher, decision-maker, e-learning practitioner, developer or citizen, read this petition and more about our on-going campaign online at: http://www.noelearningpatents.info See the list of people who signed already at: http://flosse.dicole.org/petition/ Consider signing it! Let others know about it.

Sara Zondergeld

RayCom BV