BANGALORE: Living up to its status as the country’s Information Technology (IT) capital, Bangalore played host to a different kind of “software lobby” here on Saturday.

“Patenting is an expensive and tedious process. The challenge for every programmer would be to verify each time, to see if any two lines of his code would infringe upon a patent. In the U.S., a single verification can cost as much as $5,000. The fundamental issue is that if I arrive at anything independently, should I not use it only because someone had got it patented before me?”

A former Microsoft executive, who became a patent troll, is being backed by his old boss

Patent news of interest to Free software users: codecs, GNU/Linux, trolls, and Microsoft

." This is just old wine in new bottles -- Microsoft wants another way to control your activities.

Another bit of evidence suggesting that Microsoft tries to phase in software patents into OSS

European Commissioner McCreevy is pushing for a bilateral patent treaty with the United States. This Tuesday 13 May in Brussels, White House and European representatives will try to adopt a tight roadmap for the signature of a EU-US patent treaty by the end of the year. Parts of the proposed treaty will contain provision on software patents, and could legalise them on both sides of the Atlantic.