[Patents] Press release about the BT patent on hyperlinks.-Reply

[Jean-Paul Smets jp@jungle.smets.com]

Just as a short reply.

Summary of "Lamy Informatique" text book on IT Law.

0. The spirit of the law is that programmes can not be patented.

1. The spirit of the law is
        "It is possible to get a patent on an innovative process or device 
which
includes software."

2. Patent Offices have abused the Law with their internal jurisprudency (which
is not court Law) and changed the previous sentence into :
"It is possible to get a patent on a process (where process=sequence of
instructions) or device (where device=computer) which includes innovative
software."

3. The value of such patents is uncertain. Software may be or may not be a
contributory infringement. Such patents may be or may not be invalidated 
because
they contradict the Law. 

So, if BT patent was granted now (there are many similar patents in the pipe
these days all over Europe), it is not certain that it would be valid. But 
this
does not matter too much to big patent holders since valid or not, such 
patents
allow to deploy strategies of juridical terrorism against SMEs and few people
actually go to courts. For example, the MP3 patent might be invalid when it
comes to publishing software on the Web, but no one has ever challenged 
Thomson
in courts.

JPS.