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IBM Patents... Open Source Development?

Submitted by Wonko The Sane on 26 January, 2004 - 20:29.

This patent is scary. It looks a lot like most Free Software and Open Source business models that I've heard about, read about and even written about. So it's probably been published before, which means that there really shouldn't be a patent.

But I also have to wonder why International Business Machines - IBM - would patent it. What can they gain from this? Are they attemping to control Free Software and Open Source?

One has to wonder. I don't think they need it for those people... who are those people... three letters... oh. SCO. Right.

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Commentary on the Patent from ZDNet.fr (French)

Submitted by Willy Smith on 29 January, 2004 - 19:40.

This article, entitiled Open Source developers are Saved - IBM Invents "Hot Water", predicts that the patent will not be acceptable under existing EU patent laws:



"Par ailleurs, au-delà de ces considérations "éthiques", ce brevet n'est pas sans poser problème en Europe. «Il y a peu de chances que ce brevet soit exploité en Europe, où il y a un consensus tant chez les industriels qu'à la Commission européenne pour dire que la brevetabilité ne s'étend pas aux très vagues méthodes intellectuelles, comme c'est le cas aux États-Unis», prédit le responsable."

I mentioned this patent to someone in the US, and he characterized it as "Yet Another Bogus Patent".

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This is another example of shooting oneself in the foot.

Submitted by Willy Smith on 26 January, 2004 - 21:19.

It seems very strange that IBM is doing this. On the other hand, IBM is a huge company, and it may be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.


In any case, we have to wait and see what effect this will have on Open Source. I'm sure we'll be hearing opinions about it from the rest of the OS community.

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Yeah, it doesn't make sense.

Submitted by Wonko The Sane on 27 January, 2004 - 03:13.

It's very odd. They may have a 'Patent ANYTHING' department that we don't know about. It's a traditional way of doing things at IBM, I suppose, but I think that some dialogue would help here.

IBM really should clarify this.

It was ugly. There were toothpicks everywhere...

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