[Sussex] [Fwd: [Fsfe-uk] Dead Patent-Law Sketch, Write to your embassies]

Mon Feb 14 14:38:15 UTC 2005

Forwarded, for your entertainment from the FSF's UK mailing list:

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley <geek at member.fsf.org>
To: fsfe-uk at gnu.org, uk-parl at ffii.org
Subject: [Fsfe-uk] Dead Patent-Law Sketch, Write to your embassies
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:00:24 +0000
Firstly, here's something I wrote yesterday when I was bored (based on an
idea posted to one of these lists recently).  It's a slightly modified
version of the Dead Parrot Sketch (apologies to Monty Python).  Some of
you may find it
funny.

=====Dead Patent-Law Sketch=====

  * The Cast:

        * Mr. Gates
        * A European Commissioner

  * The Sketch:

    A customer (with brown envelopes and chequebook aready) enters the C
in Brussels.

    Mr. Gates: 'Ello, I wish to register a complaint.

    (The commisioner does not respond.)

    Mr. Gates: 'Ello, Miss?

    Commissioner: What do you mean "miss"?

    Mr. Gates: I'm sorry, I have a cold. I wish to make a complaint!

    Commissioner: We're closin' for lunch.

    Mr. Gates: Never mind that, my lad. I wish to complain about this
patent law what I purchased not two years ago from this very office.

    Commissioner: Oh yes, the, uh, the computer-implemented inventions
one...What's, uh...What's wrong with it?

    Mr. Gates: I'll tell you what's wrong with it, my lad. 'E's dead,
that's what's wrong with it!

    Commissioner: No, no, 'e's uh,...he's resting.

    Mr. Gates: Look, matey, I know a dead patent law when I see one, and
I'm looking at one right now.

    Commissioner: No no he's not dead, he's, he's restin'! Remarkable law,
idn'it, ay? Beautiful sophistory and ambiguity!

    Mr. Gates: The anbiguity don't enter into it. It's stone dead.

    Commissioner: Nononono, no, no! 'E's resting!

    Mr. Gates: All right then, if he's restin', I'll wake him up!

    ...

    Mr. Gates: You let the European Parliament kill 'im, didn't you!

    Commissioner: I never!!

    Mr. Gates: Yes, you did!

    Commissioner: I never, never did anything...

    (Mr. Gates takes patent law out of briefcase and thumps it on the
desk.
Throws it up in the air and watches it plummet to the floor.)

    Mr. Gates: Now that's what I call a dead patent law. The JURI is no
longer out on that patent law...its most definitely deceased.

    Commissioner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!

    Mr. Gates: STUNNED?!?

    Commissioner: Yeah! 'E was stunned by all the public backlash! Patent
laws stun easily, major.

    Mr. Gates: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough
of this. That patent law is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it
not two years ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due
to it bein' tired and shagged out following prolonged internal diplomacy.

    Commissioner: Well...uhhh...we prefer to do things dead slow and sure
like in the EU!

    Mr. Gates: Well...the dead bit is most certainly right. Look, why did
it fall flat on his back the moment I got home last time? I never had
these problems with Congress...

    Commissioner:Remarkable patent law, id'nit, squire? Lovely
contradictions and those beautiful convoluted sentences!

    Mr. Gates: Look, I took the liberty of examining that patent law when
I
got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had got as far as it
had in the first place was that no one had actually READ it.

    (pause)

    Commissioner: Well, o'course they don't! They're not payed enough for
that...at least they are, but we pay 'em NOT to read 'em. That's the
trick, you see. Trust me...that patent law will fly straight through as an
A-item in the fisheries committee...just like...a parrot, sir...you know
parrots love a bit of fish...the great thing is, sir, that the ministers
avoid it like the plague on account of it stinkin' to 'igh 'eaven...

    Mr. Gates: Never find how 'igh your damn committee stinks, this bird
wouldn't fly through your committee if you put four million volts through
every minister present! 'E's bleedin' demised!

    Commissioner: No no! 'E's just a li'l slow!

    Mr. Gates: 'E's not slow! 'E's passed on! This patent law is no more!
He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a
stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! 'E's pushing up the daisies! 'Is
metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the
bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined
the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PATENT LAW!!

    (pause)

    Commissioner: Well, I'd better replace it, then. (he takes a quick
peek
round the back) Sorry squire, I've had a look 'round the back, and uh,
we're right out of patent laws.

    Mr. Gates: I see. I see, I get the picture.

    Commissioner: I got a HIPC initiative. Uhhh...your
good...ummm...friend, Mr. Brown had this idea you see but he hasn't got
the means...

    (pause)

    Mr. Gates: (sweetly) Pray, will it take out my competitors?

    Commissioner: Nnnnot really.

    Mr. Gates: WELL IT'S HARDLY A BLOODY REPLACEMENT, IS IT?!!???!!?

    Commissioner: N-no, I guess not. (gets ashamed, looks at his feet)

    Mr. Gates: Well. (pause)

    Commissioner: (quietly) You know I thought that...uhhh...spread you
did
in Teen Beat was rather good...uhhh...D'you....d'you want to come back to
my place?

    Mr. Gates: (looks around) Yeah, all right, sure.

  * Copyright

    The original dead parrot sketch
<http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~ebarnes/python/dead-parrot.htm> was written by
Graham Chapman, et. al. for Monty Python's Flying Circus and is  1989
Pantheon Books/Random House, Inc. My modification of it is contested to be
fair use for the purposes of pastiche (see article 5.3 (k) of EU Directive
2001/29/EC of 2001-05-22).  This is covered by criticism and/or comment in
some jurisdictions.  My modifications to it are (hereby) in the public
domain, but please give credit. 

  * Disclaimer

    Any resemblences or references to real people, living or dead; or real
events, businesses, or organisations are purely co-incidental.

==========

Also, I just thought I'd say that I think it is really important that those
of us in the EU, who are aganist the directive, write letters (not just
the petition, emails, faxes, &c but writing in ink with a pen on dead
trees)--I'm doing one now--to our local Polish ambassadors (and possibly
Spanish and Dutch given the recent parliamentary decisions there) thanking
them for their help in stopping the directive going through.

Find the addresses of your local embassies on the GoAbroad site
<http://www.goabroad.com/embassy/>.

For those of us in the UK, here are the addresses:

Polish:

Mrs. Anna Sochanska-Bialek [EU Counsellor]
Embassy of the Republic of Poland
47 Portland Place
LONDON W1B
1JH

Spanish:

[couldn't find a specific person here]
Spanish Embassy
39 Chesham Place
LONDON SW1X 8SB

Dutch:

[couldn't find a specific person here]
Royal Netherlands Embassy
38 Hyde Park Gate
LONDON SW7 5DP

Yours faithfully,
Joe Ll. G. Blakesley
(2004-02-14T14:00Z)

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