On Thu, 2003-09-04 at 00:28, Terry Collins wrote: > hmm, software patents hey. > hmm, "prior publication" might just be a major impact there.
I think the problem is that the in general the patent system is broken. With patent offices doing superficial prior art searches it is being left to the courts to decide who really holds a legal patent. This means many open source developers will simply walk away from a project (or part thereof ) rather then invest the time and money required to see it grind through the court system to an uncertain outcome. Not to mention the damage the FUD of a looming court battle will do to an active community of OS developers and users. Cheers, Malcolm V. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
