Town Gets Patent On Being the Center of Europe 169
An anonymous reader writes "And you thought software patents were going to far? How about geography patents? Apparently, as a part of the weird fight over what place in Europe represents the 'geophysical center of Europe,' the Austrian town of Frauenkirchen has received a patent (Austrian patent AM 7738/2003) declaring it the center of Europe. Not clear how one 'infringes' on such a patent, but then again, it's not clear why anyone's patenting this either."
Re:Doubtful (Score:1, Interesting)
I am no expert, but it seems more likely that it is actually a trademark.
The german sources call AM 7738/2003 "Aktenzeichen" which translate to something like reference number (clearly not patent number) and the austrian "patent amt" is also responsible for trade marks...
Re:Doubtful (Score:4, Interesting)
The real center of Europe is probably in the UK, Germany, France, or Russia. Austria must be some small country. never heard of that one..
Have you ever seen a map of Europe? Like, ever? How would the UK be at the center? I can forgive you for Germany, since it's right next to Austria. France is next to Germany, so not quite. Russia is almost as bad as UK.