[Gllug] Fwd: [opensuse] Invitation to OpenSUSE developers

[salsaman]

Philip Hands wrote:

>-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>Hash: SHA1
>
>Jason Clifford wrote:
>  
>
>>On Sat, 25 Nov 2006, Daniel P. Berrange wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>There is a large list of patents covering MP3 which have been granted
>>>by the European Patent office and thus apply in the UK, even if the 
>>>UK patent office itself wouldn't typically grant them. I must admit
>>>though I'm a little fuzzy on how tenable these patants are given that
>>>the general concept of software patents was explicitly rejected in
>>>the EU last year.
>>>      
>>>
>>That the patents office has accepted and granted a patent does not mean it 
>>is enforcable. EU law specifically rejects software patents and they are 
>>not covered under the CPDA.
>>    
>>
>
>The only fly in the ointment being that there's at least one case[1] where,
>as I understand it, a judge was persuaded by clever patent lawyers that a
>general-purpose computer, when running a program, metamorphoses into a
>unique machine that is a gestalt of the computer and the program, and that
>while the program itself is not patentable, this (I'd say fictitious)
>machine _is_ patentable.  *sigh*
>
>Cheers, Phil.
>  
>
That's generally how it's done in the USA also. You don't patent 
software, you patent a "computer which is running a specific piece of code".


Gabriel.


-------------- next part --------------
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug