>> If it's a clear cut software-only or algorithm-only with no physical 
>> application it will be rejected, in fact you'd be dumb to waste the money 
>> trying to apply for a patent, no legal firm would advise you to do this.
>>
>> *But*, if it applies to some physical object that can actually be made, 
>> then the algorithm/program *can* be patented.  For example a novel image 
>> processing algorithm for improving display quality on a display is fine, 
>> or a control program for a crane, that sort of thing.
>>
>> As you can imagine though, there is a huge grey area in the middle, so 
>> probably some things get through that wouldn't be enforceable in court.
>
> Right. So as long as M$ describes the DirectX API as "a system for 
> allowing cool programs to run on our OS and nobody else's", they can 
> patent it.

Not in the EU they can't, because it does not apply to some physical object 
that can only be made utilising this patent.  At a stretch they might be 
able to get away with some GUI concept applied to a mobile device they were 
manufacturing, but it's going to have to be quite a high level concept (eg a 
novel way to select images from a database using a touch screen) rather than 
an API.

> And then sue ReactOS for implementing it.

There is no way to successfully sue anyone in the EU for patent infringement 
if you're not dealing with anything physical.

Post a reply to this message