EU software patent law faces axe 829

billwg

Nobody has to 'lift' anything out of System V. AT&T put the internals if Unix into the public domain. Other than their copyrighted code, anyone is free to examine and reverse engineer the system. That's how BSD was written and it was subesequently judged as not infringing the commercial product in a suit brought by USL (which eventually sold to SCO).

I've seen Microsoft come in and audit companies, including Boeing. The threat of a suit is there

Copyright protection is much more appropriate for software.

If you want to keep the inner workings of a product to yourself, patents are practically useless, since they require that you describe your idea in the patent.

The US patent system is broken. They have issued a number of patents (some to Microsoft) for software techniques in common use. More power to the EU for dragging their feet on s-w patents.

Representing numbers in base N is a common mathematical technique. Using various representations to optimize data transfer between any two devices over a data link is a common technique (hex, octal, binary are a few examples). If the broad use of a technique is not patentable, a narrower use should not be either. The patent office screwed up.

Not pirated. Downloaded legitimately. Once an employee clicks the 'I Agree' button on a license (for the beneficial use of his employer), the employer becomes bound to that agreement.

By the employer buying the software. Or getting stuck with some other odious licensing terms they would rather not deal with.

-- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Rube Goldberg is alive and working for Microsoft.