Re: [Patents] Microsoft Assembles Patent Arsenal for Longhorn

[Jonas Maebe <jonas.maebe@ugent.be>]

On 4 mei 2004, at 20:49, miriam clinton (iriXx) wrote:

> > The idea isn't to ensure that Microsoft makes a fair profit from its
> > patents; it's to make sure that no one else can write fully compatible
> > software.' An older article mentions some other patents."
> what are the consequences in relation to the European Software 
> Directive of 1991 - where interoperability between operating systems 
> is upheld?

Different beasts. The 1991 directive only guarantees the right ton 
reverse engineer a program for compatibility purposes. Software patents 
can't be used to prevent this reverse engineering, but they can be used 
to forbid the application of whatever you learned during that process.

So there is no legal-technical conflict between both, but of course the 
intention of allowing interoperability is completely lost without 
something like the Parliament's article 6a.


Jonas