These days, the EU will follow big brother in another ass-licking of the megacorps. Soon, things like scrollbars, window tabs and shopping carts on websites will be the property of someone. Happy new world. In case you think this is all some conspiracy theory, check out a list of patents already granted.

Yeah, I've read several articles about it, too. The most absurd example I remember was a patent called something like "shop with one click" that forces other companies to add a useless mouse click to their online shops.

Edited by Tapuak at 01:36 on September, 14th 2003

That one-click shopping patent is owned by Amazon.com, which owns a shitload of other patents. Calling it "software patents", however, is a little off the mark. They are just a specific example of "business patents" that have been around for some time now. For example, the company I work for owns the patent for graphical representation of the Internet industry; basically a map of dot.coms that I've been working on a few years ago. So if you want to take a piece of paper and draw small boxes with names of dot.com companies in them and connect them with lines, you owe us royalties.

I personally think it goes against the basic spirit of the copyright. Copyright is for promoting innovation, while these patents are about locking others out.

So anyway, any comments on the version that got approved?

I haven't really followed the development...