Canada software patents

[Brett Wuth]

Russell McOrmond writes:
 >   This logic needs to be extended from animals to plants (IE: deal with
 > the Monsanto-seed problem that is causing considerable problems for
 > farmers) and then from plants to software (IE: FLOSS can be seen to be the
 > seeds to derivative works, making software patents and FLOSS incompatible
 > concepts).
 > 
 >   If we can't eradicate Software Patents in Canada, it would at least be
 > good to get a complete patent exception for FLOSS.

It's my understanding that software patents are not currently
recognized in Canada.  I base this on my on my memory of security work
that was done in Canada rather than the US because of the US patent on
the RSA algorithm.  Also Debian Linux segments its archive of software
into a "non-US" portion which includes patented algorithms (and
so-called "munitions-grade" algorithms) which I believe is freely
distributable in Canada.

If I'm wrong about software patents in Canada, I'd very much
appreciate being corrected.  Such a thing would be quite significant
to me and many other Canadian independent software developers.

Thanks,
-- 
Brett Wuth  wuth at acm.org wuth at telusplanet.net bwuth at cuug.ab.ca
Box 1251-U, Pincher Creek, Alberta T0K 1W0, CANADA  Tel:+1 403 627-2460
http://pgp.mit.edu has mine; Print=E4F8EDEECBE01AD2FA3D8B2D94B1A292
What is the meaning of life?!  Yes.
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