Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Town Gets Patent On Being the Center of Europe

Posted by samzenpus on from the continental-drift-be-damned dept.

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."

2 of 169 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Doubtful by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I am no expert, but it seems more likely that it is actually a trademark.
    The german sources call AM 7738/2003 "Aktenzeichen" which translate to something like reference number (clearly not patent number) and the austrian "patent amt" is also responsible for trade marks...

  2. Re:Doubtful by oodaloop · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The real center of Europe is probably in the UK, Germany, France, or Russia. Austria must be some small country. never heard of that one..

    Have you ever seen a map of Europe? Like, ever? How would the UK be at the center? I can forgive you for Germany, since it's right next to Austria. France is next to Germany, so not quite. Russia is almost as bad as UK.

    --
    Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.