Alan Cox writes:
> Patents on software algorithms are illegal in most of europe.
It's a bit more subtle than that. I've talked a bit about that with
the university professor who taught an intellectual property course
for engineering students and algorithms and mathematic stuff as such
is not patentable. In combination with a physical device it is. So in
his opinion, according to Belgian law, Unisys wouldn't have gotten a
patent on LZW compressing, but they could have gotten a patent on the
application of LZW for communication through a telephone line, i.e. in
modem application.
-- Lieven Marchand <mal@bewoner.dma.be> When C++ is your hammer, everything looks like a thumb. Steven M. Haflich- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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