IANAL but actually the "software" - patent "system" in european has been under changes since around ~2000 which means that there would not have been any proble

IANAL but actually the "software" - patent "system" in european has been under changes since around ~2000 which means that there would not have been any problem in releasing his code... (https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/2016/e/ar52.html https://www.epo.org/law-practice/legal-texts/html/epc/2016/e...) (basically they are not de jure, but they would have a hard time to actually enforce this, if it is trivially). actually the lawyer did make a strange assumption.. well there would still be a problem if he ever want to travel outside the eu where somebody could actually claim the infrigdement. (Edit: in germany where I live there were patent processes about that matter in ~2000 and the federal court ruled in favor of the patent, however after/at the end of 2000 they basically always rejected them.)