Town Gets Patent On Being the Center of Europe

An anonymous reader writes "And you thought software patents were going to far? How about geography patents? Apparently, as a part of the weird fight over what place in Europe represents the 'geophysical center of Europe,' the Austrian town of Frauenkirchen has received a patent (Austrian patent AM 7738/2003) declaring it the center of Europe. Not clear how one 'infringes' on such a patent, but then again, it's not clear why anyone's patenting this either."

Comments

Doubtful

[symes]

And the rest of the article goes on to say:

"Unfortunately, the details are really sparse. Wikipedia notes that it holds the Austrian patent AM 7738/2003, but navigating the Austrian patent website didn't work very well (um... language barrier...). The only source cited by Wikipedia is a speech from a few years ago, which mentions in passing that a woman's church the town had patented it."

Any Austrian patent experts here that can verify this claim? I call BS.

Re:Doubtful

[danlip]

Austria must be some small country. never heard of that one..

Seriously? Ever hear of Vienna (in Austria), one of the most important cities in European cultural history? Mozart? Strauss? Freud? Schrödinger? and many others.

Re:Doubtful

[ZippyTheWonderDog]

yes, trademark is radically different than a patent (even though that is still dumb). This whole story smacks of inaccuracy.. not just patent instead of trademark, but also assuming that "geophysical" == "geographical". Language is picky - you really have to learn to use the *right* words.

Re:Doubtful

[yuri benjamin]

Yeah, but it's not like a lot of people were involved in that war or anything. (Funny story actually, most people blame the war on the Germans when it was really Austria who set the stones rolling.)

Actually it was a Serb nationalist who started it. But that event was just a spark in an already volatile situation. The real reason that the European countries were itching to have a go at each other was imperialism on all sides. They were all expanding their empires/colonies throughout Asia and Africa and were fierce rivals.

The assassination of the Austrian duke just gave them an excuse to start open hostilities.

Re:Doubtful

[yuri benjamin]

In any case, I just think it's kind of funny since some people seem to think Germany actually started two world wars.

I tend to think of the two world wars as one war with a twenty year cease-fire in the middle of it. If the Allies hadn't been so harsh with their terms of surrender at the end of WW1 then Germany might not have gone through the hardship that breed such extreme fascism. If we give our defeated enemies a little dignity they hopefully won't rise up twenty years later and clobber us. But we never learn.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

For marketing the town?

[Meshach]

What is strange about that? It sounds like they want to secure the term for use in marketing the town. Cities are just looking for a way to set themselves apart and make them marketable.

It is just like Microsot patenting or trademarking their latest slogan ("Your Potential. Our Passion" or whatever it is).

Re:When Turkey gets the go ahead

[Attila Dimedici]

If this had been modded "Funny" instead of "Interesting". I would have let it pass. However, even if Turkey joins the EU, it will still be in Asia rather than Europe and since this "patent" is for being the "geophysical center of Europe" it would apply to the geographical meaning of Europe, not the political meaning.