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Software Patent
of the year 2006

Achim Weiss comments on the election of the patent EP0836787 to be the "software patent of August":

"Siemens' software patent EP0836787 taking legal effect would affect many elementary Internet services and data loading via mobile communication connections. It could also hinder the competition for these services – and that with severe economic consequences. In the end the consumers would have to foot the bill by paying higher prices. So far, software patents of this kind cannot be legally implemented in Europe yet. But this can change quickly when a centralization of patent disputes on a European level is instated as planned. It is currently being discussed by the European Commission. For the majority of European companies the new uniform EU patent only makes sense if at the same time no more patents are granted for software products, and many thousands of software patents are erased from the patent registers".

Achim Weiss, technology chief executive at 1&1 Internet AG (Montabaur, Germany) and responsible for software developments.