3 ms·

Would this even be a problem for projects based on Europe, where there are less issues (or none at all) coming from software patents? If so, I wonder why more

• lolc 6y ago
  It can help some, but it would still be a problem because the trolls can go after the distributors. For example, the package would then have to be in the Debian non-free repo, rather than main.
• guerby 6y ago
  Unfortunately there are plenty of software patents in Europe. And patent lawyers are trying hard to establish a "unified patent court" so software patents can snowball completely out of control: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_European_Patent_Convention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_patents_under_the_Eur...
  • raverbashing 6y ago
    > Under the EPC, and in particular its Article 52,[1] "programs for computers" are not regarded as inventions for the purpose of granting European patents,[2] but this exclusion from patentability only applies to the extent to which a European patent application or European patent relates to a computer program as such. So, basically, you can't patent a program per se, but you can patent a "device" that uses the program. It is limited in scope
    • bonoboTP 6y ago
      Which in practice seriously means that software patents describe the von Neumann architecture and talk about how the RAM and CPU communicate, when it's actually about a high level software solution. It's also always called a "System and method for XYZ", implying the system is part of the invention. Really look up some patents freely available online, they all do this which is plain ridiculous.