Software Patents Outside of America

Once again has Facebook defend itself at court level. This time it’s about another ominously social software U.S. Patent 6,519,629 (”System for creating a community for users with common interests to
interact in”). During our IPO we looked at several US Patents in the areas of six degrees of seperation, community, invitations and general social software and got a few legal opionions.

All legal opinions came to the same conclusion:

Because at least one step of each process preformed by XING is done on a computer located outside of the US, a court of competent jurisdiction should find that neither XING, nor any of its users, have used the claimed method wihtin the US.

In Europe, the software scene is very much opposing any form of software patents. And we as a company support certain initiatives. Software is a key technology that is important to every company, every public administration, and every household. Therefore, everything that makes the software industry ill has effects on the entire organism, on all aspects of the economy and society.

There is a nice quote by Bill Gates (1991):

“If people had understood how patents would be granted
when most of today’s ideas were invented and had taken out patents,
the industry would be at a complete standstill today.”