[Jack]

I fail to understand or appreciate, Mr.Vicchio, why you come into this thread so hostile and insulting of those of us who have an opinion different from yours. If you hope to bully me into agreement you're wrong.
It's not just us Linux fans and P2P users who are backing this. From c|net news in 2003:

A group of high-ranking scientists is petitioning the European Parliament to prevent the patenting of algorithms and software ideas, the latest twist in the European Commission's attempts to create a unified patent regime for member states. The petition, signed by scientists from around Europe, was delivered Monday, ahead of a vote by the European Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI), which is the latest committee to examine the commission's patent proposal. The fate of the proposed patent plan could have a dramatic effect on the way software is developed in the EU, with many developers and small businesses fearing a U.S.-style system in which large companies with thousands of software-related patents are able to force smaller competitors to pay for intellectual property licenses. Thirty-one scientists, including three from Britain, signed the petition earlier this month, criticizing the proposal and demanding that the European parliament adopt a text that would "make impossible, clearly, for today and tomorrow, any patenting of the underlying ideas of software (or algorithms), of information processing methods, of representations of information and data, and of interaction between human beings and computers." Those rallying against software patents, including the petitioning scientists and the 143,000 people who have so far signed a similar petition organized by the EuroLinux Alliance, fear that an increasing number of software-related patents will increase the sway of large patent-holding companies over small software developers. "(Software patents) would be not only useless, but also extremely harmful, because they would cast in concrete the so-powerful oligopolies that naturally emerge in information-based industries," the petition said.

From the Financial Times:

However, the directive fell hostage to a debate on whether inventions that rely on software - let alone pure software such as Microsoft's Windows operating system - should be patentable at all. Many members of the parliament believed that the directive should endorse a restrictive approach, while others were swayed by the arguments of big technology groups which insisted that patents were good for innovation and competitiveness. Unable to find a balance, parliamentarians (MEPs) voted by 648 to 14 to reject the directive. Josep Borrell, president of the parliament, said the rejection was the most decisive majority vote in the history of the chamber. Lawyers said the move would have little impact on companies seeking patent protection for their inventions. Julian Potter, a patent attorney and partner at Mintz Levin in London, said: "Patents for software have been granted in Europe for decades. The European Patent Office alone has granted over 30,000 patents in this area. That can now continue and the important message today is that patents are still available for software." Rudy Provoost, the chief executive of Philips Consumer Electronics, said: "This result means that our innovation... will continue to benefit from patents in the face of growing competition from China and elsewhere." Ericsson, the Swedish technology group, said: "The rejection of the directive means nothing will change. We will still apply for patents the same way we have done previously." It added that some proposed amendments would have removed patent protection for "almost anything we do".