According to BBC online, European politicians have thrown out a controversial bill that could have led to software being patented.
The European Parliament voted 648 to 14 to reject the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive.
The bill was reportedly rejected because, politicians said, it pleased no-one in its current form. Responding to the rejection the European Commission said it would not draw up or submit any more versions of the original proposal.
Yippee!
Apropos my prediction that terrorism in London would lead to “mass cancellation of vacation bookings by Americans, who despite the gung-ho militarism of their society, seem pathologically nervous as individuals”, an American friend writes:
It is not, Sire, that we are “pathologically nervous as individuals”, but rather that we have already celebrated our July 4th and need no further pyrotechnics. Further, the London weather was clearly obvious to even the most dull American TV couch-potato news watcher, and we do have sunshine in closer locations.
Also, cheaper. . . .
Ouch! In my defence, I should say that we did see such mass cancellations in the past every time there was an IRA bombing campaign on the UK mainland.