shopping basked patent successfully asserted

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

Another news story at the register:

        http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/28803.html

The Register writes

  When it comes to the Divine patent, UK and other overseas firms are at
  risk of action only if thye have assets in the US. This means that
  Divine can issue proceedings and, crucially enforce judgements on the
  other side of the Atlantic.

They may have overlooked that the EPO has granted the same patent and
that the UK patent office, among others, has also issued it

        http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/txt/ep/0803/105/

so that the victim company could even be attacked at home.

The EPO patent is quite new, granted in Feb 2002, and it most
certainly reflects the standard of "technical contribution" which the
EPO and its relays in industry associations, governments, CEC and
Europarl are advocating.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608   
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
130,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/