Greetings,
Patents do not transcend international border. They need
to be applied for in each country separately.
To ease the process of applying for patents in many countries
at once Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) was formed. When you
file a patent application with WIPO head office under PCT you
specify a list "countries of designation" from list of countries
members of PCT. Filing like this takes significantly less in
paperwork and application fees than filing application in each
country separately.
Many countries do not grant software patents so it is not likely
that IBM applied through PCT since a refusal in one country may
cause to patent to be refused in all countries.
Hope it helps,
Nicolai Tufar
