Open Sauce Software
Tasty titbits from people using Linux and other open source software in business.
Wednesday 5 November 2008, 10:39 AM
The end of software patents?
The open source community will be resting a bit easier - "abstract" patents, for business processes have been ruled out by the US authorities, at least for now.
The US patent office rejected an application by one Bernard Bilski, for a business process and, after an appeal, that decision has been upheld. The issue was taken up by the open source community, and Red Hat in particular.
I've been travelling, so I've picked this up a week late, and now only have time to point you to the Groklaw report and Red Hat's explanation of its significance to open source.
There's more - much more - discussion since then, on Groklaw.
The US patent office rejected an application by one Bernard Bilski, for a business process and, after an appeal, that decision has been upheld. The issue was taken up by the open source community, and Red Hat in particular.
I've been travelling, so I've picked this up a week late, and now only have time to point you to the Groklaw report and Red Hat's explanation of its significance to open source.
There's more - much more - discussion since then, on Groklaw.
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