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German High Court Declares All Software Patentable
FlorianMueller writes "Long gone are the times when Europe was that bastion of resistance against software patents and patents on such things as file systems were ruled invalid. In a decision published today, the Federal Court of Justice of Germany upheld a patent on the automatic generation of structured documents (such as XML/HTML) in a client-server setting. The ruling lays out general principles that go beyond the patent at stake: they tear down all barriers to software patentability in the largest EU member state, even though a European patent treaty has been adopted that was intended to exclude software from the scope of patentable subject matter. EU patent examiners recently warned against a drift toward software patents. Software patent critics in Europe fear this will spark more litigation on their continent and increasingly call for defensive measures."
There may be prior art...
I hold the patent on stupidity. You all owe me licensing fees!
So that makes any act of stupidity unlawfull and it will be dismissed by courts. In the end only you can be charged in court on acts of stupidity, but luckily you were granted the sole right to be stupid for ten years, by your own stupidity.
How does that feel?
Here be signatures
I am sorry, I patented the patent trolling. I owe you nothing. You may now transfer all of your patents as a license fee, or stop engaging in patent trolling activity.
Here be signatures
Then fork over my share. I patented patenting.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.