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ACTION:

MS Product and Corporate Questions: Waggener Edstrom at (503) 245-0905
MS email contact info is at http://register.microsoft.com/regwiz/regwiz.asp

The USPTO phone number is 800.786.9199 (800.PTO.9199). They say they are "not yet equipped to handle general email correspondence". What a shock.

US Asst. Attorney General for Antitrust: Joel Klein.
* "If your comments relate specifically to the Antitrust Division's suit against Microsoft Corporation, please direct your correspondence to Microsoft.atr@usdoj.gov". Seems like this qualifies, eh?
* Other DOJ email contact info is at http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/contact/emails.htm
* DOJ Antitrust phone contact info: http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/contact/phoneworks.htm

Vice President Al Gore (cheerleader for hi-tech and, um, less distracted than others at the White House)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/WH/Mail/html/Mail_Vice_P resident.html
Or email direct at vice.president@whitehouse.gov

US Senate Commerce, Science, And Transportation Committee
John McCain, chairman: John_McCain@McCain.senate.gov
http://www.senate.gov/~commerce/
508 Dirksen Senate Office Bldg
Washington, DC 20510-6125
(202) 224-5115
http://www.senate.gov/committees/committee_detail. cfm?COMMITTEE_ID=419 -- lists all members, with links to their homepages.

The House Committee on Commerce
2125 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 225-2927
Commerce@mail.house.gov

House Committee on Science
2320 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20515
(202) 225-6371

Bogus Patent petition:
http://ethepeople.com/affiliates/national/fullview .cfm?ETPID=0&PETID=98938 &ETPDIR=affiliates/national

INFO:

W3C copyright terms: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/ipr-notice

W3C software license: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/Legal/copyright-softw are.html

"Microsoft Awarded Style Sheet Patent"
Reprinted from The Bulletin: Seybold News & Views on Electronic Publishing, Vol. 4, No. 19, February 4, 1999
http://webreview.com/wr/pub/1999/02/05/style/index .html
This article apparently broke the story.

Wired News: "MS Wins Patent for Web Standard" by Chris Oakes
2:05 p.m. 4.Feb.99.PST
http://www.wired.com/news/news/technology/story/17 741.html

WEB STANDARDS PROJECT CALLS FOR CLARIFICATION OF WHETHER PATENT GIVES MICROSOFT CONTROL OVER TWO KEY WEB STANDARDS
(press release: Feb. 4, 1999)
http://www.webstandards.org/patent.txt
(Also discussed at http://webreview.com/wr/pub/1999/02/05/style/index 2.html)

At this writing (11:30pm PST Feb. 5), nothing on this story has appeared in/on:
* C|Net
* ZD Net and all related publications/sites
* CNN
* NY Times, et al.
* Seattle Times (www.seattletimes.com)

1. rigging a survey,
2. faking video evidence in court,
3. using cash reserves to affect profits, then firing the internal auditor that questioned it,
4. mounting a bogus grassroots PR marketing campaign

   The actions of a desperate company? An overly arrogant company?

   Or both?