On Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 3:30 PM, Robin Muilwijk <robin.muilw...@gmail.com> wrote: > It does raise questions though; what about existing patents? And, what about > companies, might they relocate, so they can still patent their software?
Every country has their own patent laws, and companies must patent their invention in each country in which they wish to protect their "idea". So a company based in NZ would still be able to patent software in the USA and litigate in the US if they thought it worthwhile. The local NZ software industry will be an interesting case study in years to come. They have removed the burden of software patents which will hopefully foster a more creative local software industry. This could be quite advantageous for FOSS project based in NZ, since it provides a level of protection against patent lawsuits. An example would be panotools for panoramic photo stitching. If the tool was developed and hosted in NZ, they probably wouldn't need to artificial limit the software because of questionable patents. http://panotools.sourceforge.net/ Bill _______________________________________________ Sign-up for our weekly newsletter: http://opensource.com/email-newsletter Osdc-list mailing list Osdc-list@redhat.com https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/osdc-list
