CCL: software pattents in chemistry?

[David van der Spoel <spoel(0)xray.bmc.uu.se>]

 Sent to CCL by: David van der Spoel [spoel- -xray.bmc.uu.se]
 Egon Willighagen e.willighagen%a%science.ru.nl wrote:
>  Sent to CCL by: Egon Willighagen [e.willighagen]_[science.ru.nl]
>  Hi all,
> Today I learned that software pattents have hit chemistry,
>  chemoinformatics in
>  this case:
>  http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO2005001743&F=0
> I have no idea on the impact of this pattent, but was wondering if
>  others saw
>  more software pattents in chemistry, and wether software pattents in
>  chemistry affected work in our field.
>  
>  Anyone who has experience with software pattents in cheminformatics,
>  computational chemistry and the likes?
>  Egon
 This is bad.
I had an idea some time ago that could help to insure ourselves from
 problems related to patents. If there were a repository for software
 that is in a public place, like a scientific journal (e.g. JCC or
 JCTC),
 where one could upload new versions of the code (together with a
 one-page description of the software) then there would be a public
 track-record of software that can be used in patent-cases as  proof of
 prior art. Of course the software needs to be under a license that
 allows redistribution. Simultaneously this would be a great source of
 information.
How would you feel about contributing to something like this? I gather
 that if there is enough support from the community we could convince
 one
 of the journals to do something like this.
 --
 David.
 ________________________________________________________________________
 David van der Spoel, PhD, Assoc. Prof., Molecular Biophysics group,
 Dept. of Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University.
 Husargatan 3, Box 596,  	75124 Uppsala, Sweden
 phone:	46 18 471 4205		fax: 46 18 511 755
 spoel{=}xray.bmc.uu.se	spoel{=}gromacs.org   http://folding.bmc.uu.se
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