Software patents

[Bob Hall]

On Fri, Sep 12, 2003 at 09:18:34PM +0000, Jens Rehsack wrote:
> Todd Stephens wrote:
> But if any algorithm used in bsd will be patented in europe and
> the patent became valid, they may have a problem either.

I don't know about Europe, but if the algorithm existed in *BSD prior 
to the patent, that would be "prior art", and it would invalidate the 
patent. Given the way changes have been introduced into the code base in 
the various BSDs, there shouldn't be any problem documenting that BSD 
had it first. The problem is not on things that already exist; they can 
generally be documented. The problem is granting patents on trivial 
improvements, like "one click shopping". Patent law was never intended 
to protect that sort of thing. 

Bob Hall