Ridiculous eCommerce patents - should I be worried?

[Jan Wildeboer]

All,

I am one of the core developers of an eCommerce solution (oscommerce) 
licensed under the GPL. I am based in germany and the project leader is 
also in germany. Two core team members are in USA.

It has been brought to our attention that there are some lawsuits in USA 
about patent infringement, filed by a company called PanIP  (Pangea 
Intellectual Properties L.L.C).

You can read more about these patents here:

http://www.informationweek.com/story/IWK20021020S0002

http://www.youmaybenext.com/why.html

http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/10/22/015241&mode=thread&tid=155

IANAL - but IMHO these patents are not valid under EU-jurisdiction - 
correct?

As our program fits quite exactly in these patents - must we be worried 
about possible legal actions against us or our core team members in USA?

Or does the GPL mak esure we will have no problems?

This patent stuff is getting more and more ridiculous.

IMHO there is prior art - Vend/Minivend was first published in 1995. But 
does that count in any way?

Jan Wildeboer