Cassandra cries again

But still they bring the wooden horse through their gates and into their city. And now the the European directive on software patents is another step closer to being adopted.

And on the same day we hear there will be no more debate on EU patents directive draft we get in today's Register:

Autodesk and Microsoft have signed a cross-licensing agreement that will give each company broader access to the other's patent portfolio.
[...]
This agreement is part of a larger effort from Microsoft to extend its intellectual property portfolio. The company has several other cross-licensing deals already signed, including agreements with Cisco, SAP and Siemens. According to CNET, it is currently in talks with more than ten other companies, and wants to sign up to 30 more deals over the next five years.

And what is the Cassandra Syndrome?

a term applied to predictions of doom about the future that are not believed, but upon later reflection turn out to be correct. This denotes a psychological tendency among people to disbelieve inescapably bad news, often through denial. The person making the prediction is caught in the dilemma of knowing what is going to happen but not being able to resolve the problem.