[Patents] software patents

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> I would like to know the basis of software patents.  What part of
> software is patentable? which countries have software patenting laws?

No country afaik has a any special law for software patenting.
Most countries have laws that restrict the patent system to physical /
tangible / technical inventions, and depending on the clarity and the
interpretation of those laws, some courts assert that software solutions
cannot be patented, because they are systems of formal logics, subject
not to empirical verification but to mathematical proof, developped not
in an experimental laboratory but in the testbed of the human mind.

This thinking has been present in all patent systems, and in Europe it
is still part of the law.  Art 52 of the European Patent Conventions
states that "plans and methods for intellectual activity ... and
programs for computers" cannot be patented.

For more info, see

        http://swpat.ffii.org/
        http://petition.eurolinux.org/reference/
        http://www.freepatents.org/

-phm