More UB-Tree patent information

Hi Prof. Bayer,

Haven't heard anything back from you regarding the patents on
UB-Tree's.  Specifically wondering if it's alright to use UB-Tree's in
Open Source projects.

On a related topic, in your paper "The Universal B-Tree for
multidimensional Indexing"
(http://mistral.in.tum.de/results/publications/TUM-I9637.pdf) you
mention a German "Patent Pending" number of "196 35 429.3", is this the
one which was approved in Europe?

In the paper "Bulk Loading a Data Warehouse built upon a UB-Tree"
(http://mistral.in.tum.de/results/publications/FKM+00.pdf) it mentions
the Japanese Patent filed on 22nd May 2000, Application Number
2000-149648.  Is this the Japanese patent for UB-Trees which hasn't yet
been approved?

:)

Regards and best wishes,

Justin Clift

--
"My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those
who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the
first group; there was less competition there."
   - Indira Gandhi