Linux users could face European patent threat
Linux users in the UK could face a greater threat from Microsoft than previously thought, but experts agree that British open-source users are in far less danger than US users from Microsoft's claim that open-source software infringes its patents.
Microsoft has claimed that Linux and other open-source software infringes 235 of its patents. Although the company has refused to say which patents are involved, the risk must be lower in the UK than the US, because the company has far fewer patents in the UK, argued Andrew Katz, a solicitor at Moorcrofts, last week.
However, Microsoft does have more patents affecting the UK than the 51 UK patent applications Katz quoted, because Redmond also has a few hundred European patents which might have force here, depending on the decisions of UK courts, said David Pearce, an associate at Nottingham-based patent attorneys Eric Potter Clarkson, on the IPKat blog.
"Even if 400 apply in the UK, this is a vastly smaller number than the amount that apply in the US," said Katz. "It demonstrates that the UK regime is vastly different to the US regime, which is the main point that needs to be drawn out."
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