To answer your question about who to inform and lobby:
Politicians.

They’ll listen to industry (including free software companies), special interest groups (FSF, FSFE, BSA), their national Patent Office, applicants (via their patent attorneys) and their electors (if they make enough noise in enough numbers).
- Companies, applicants and special interest groups will lobby for what’s in their best interests
- The Patent Offices will interpret existing law and advise on the workability of legislation, but won’t push a particular agenda (shouldn’t anyway – I don’t believe the UK office did)
- Electors are the politicians’ bosses, but very few understand or care about the patent system so it’s low on the agenda. Likewise the politicians often don’t know about or understand the patent system, unless they are made to see it as important

@ Vivek
Short answer: You can’t patent computer software under UK law. They are protected by copyright instead.

Long answer: UK law says you cannot patent “a program for a computer, as such” (the quote may not be quite right, but it’s roughly that). The “as such” blurs the line between what is an is not patentable and in my view there are patents granted in the UK that most people – within KDE at least, but we’re biased – would consider to be software patents.

So:
- you shouldn’t be able to patent the code for providing a website interface under UK law.
- you would be able to patent an engine management system that increases fuel efficiency by injecting fuel at a particular time determined by software (assuming that the clever bit is when you inject the fuel, not something in the software)
- the grey area between the two could include a compiler that results in binaries that use computer memory in a more efficient way and so run quicker. Is that software or is it not software “as such” because the clever bit includes a physical effect in the computer memory?

Before the Prescott judgement I would not have been surprised if that last example would have been patentable in the UK. Afterwards, I’m not sure. I don’t know where the line is drawn nowadays…

Can you clarify something for me:
The UK I.P.O. seems to indicate computer software falls under copyright, not patents. (See http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-about.htm). However, you talk here about patents – is that just for ease of reference and for similar language to these issues or are computer programs actually covered under patents in the UK?

FYI – the Canadian I.P.O. which lists computer programs as copyright, which is where I got the idea in the first place:
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr00836.html

Got me fired up but also hopeful.

Although in some ways contrary to the message of your article (which seemed to be saying the fault is not necessarily that the individuals involved are ignorant of the issues), your article got me thinking about who need be informed and lobbied regarding the potential impacts of current IP practices on software/technology/”the marketplace”. Who are the influential people, what are the areas of ignorance in these groups and what do they read.