Linked by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Sat 15th May 2004 08:23 UTC
It is when I read articles like this that I have "my blood all going up to my head" (that's a Greek saying for people that get angry). So apparently, Apple is trying to patent "transparent windows that do a certain action after fading away". While I don't personally find this "innovation/invention" patentable, it's fine with me: Apple is doing the best it can to secure its business (maybe I would do the same if I had shareholders on my back).
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3. with regard to "future consequences": inevitably there will be some technology blocked from use by patents, but _equally_ the innovation and inventiveness of F/OSS can produce the new technologies _first_ and by the mere fact of disclosing them is creating prior art that blocks anyone else from patenting.
After the patent debate started in Europe last year, I talked to a friend of mine who studies to be a laywer soon.
One of the problems, OSS developers have with the patents situation, is that the patent office is not supposed to protect the public from "trivial patents". At least the law in germany assumes (to some degree) the existence of contrary privat interests: If company A gets a trivial patent, a competing company B is assumed to fight it legally.
Obviously, this can't work for OSS developers. They just share the code they've written. Thus, they have no interest to fight trivial patents on legal grounds, and they also have no money to do it. The public looses.
Thus, even _if_ OSS developers create a new technology first, they usually don't patent it. But a company can, and as a result the OSS developer can't even fight it legally.
An example is the patent of what can interpreted as "Virtual desktops" for Windows, granted to Microsoft. Known on Linux for years but who will be able to fight the grant of the patent?