Patently I'm confused

[Richard A. O'Keefe]

I've just been reading, or rather, trying to read, a patent.
It's
    Software structure for telecommujnication switching systems
    Larsson, Odling, Rosberg, & Karlson of Ericsson,
    filed in 1994
and can be found at
    http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5388258.html

Apparently when it was originally filed it came with some of the Erlang
manuals as attachments, which is how I happened to stumble across it.

As near as I can figure out, they are claiming anything even remotely
similar to Erlang/OTP, but that can't be right, surely.

Does anyone know what the heck that patent is about, and to what degree
Erlang/OTP is affected by it?