Microsoft seeks to patent “Methods are disclosed for encoding latitude/longitude coordinates within a URL in a relatively compact form.” I’m not even going to tell you the grandiosse repercussions of such actions… actually I am.
So Microsoft seeks to patent latitude/longitude coordinates. If this were to pass, the repercussions would be enormous: weather information websites, basic geography websites, GIS datum information, online navigation maps, GPS datasets would all be liable for lawsuits. Honestly, this is a prime example of why I’m against software patents in its current form: because the system is being abused to the point of insanity. If this passes, it will be illegal to have any content on the Internet that pertains to geography and locations.
But this extends beyond the reaches of the Internet. I am a Physical Geography student. I put alot of my work online so that I can access and work on it regardless of where I am physically situated. With such laws in place, it means that I am legally liable to be sued because my homework contains Lat/Long data in its filename. This homework that so happens to be online. Utterly ridiculous.