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Charlie Northrup's One-Man Patent Grab Continues
FirstEdition writes "Will this never end! Linux Business & Technology writes that Charlie Northrup, the guy in New Jersey whose prior art on what looks to be Web services dates back to 1994 and appears to trump anybody else's IP, has gotten another patent. Of course, he has transferred the IP to a spin off company populated mostly by lawyers. More details here."
I'm sure that he'll manage to get royalties from the two or three million geeks running Apache at home.
Maybe we'll get lucky, and he'll pull a SCO, and try to sue IBM. I'm rather certain that IBM will find something that they have prior art on, or something that his patent depends on, that IBM can pull out and have fun with...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I've heard a lot of "off with his head!" comments around these parts in regards to Mr. Northrup, but can we look at his point of view with a shred of objectivity for a moment? Let me introduce a hypothetical situation. You, a programmer, create some wonderful technology. It's so wonderful, in fact, that it spreads all over the world and is used by nearly everyone on a daily basis. Would you not want some measure of control on this technology that you labored over for so many hours? Would you not like some shred of claim to its origin? Though it's easy to tie this man to a cross for his pursuits in I.P., I think the honest answer most of us would give is "Yes, I would." Perspective is a difficult thing to deal with; however, I think Mr. Northrup is on the "good side" in this fight.
+ Donald Gunth
+ Email: dgunth@quicktek.net
"Caffeine is the greatest lubricant ever created." -ESR
Ya know, this stuff discribed really reminds me of the old BBS days. Almost every service in this "patent" could have been applied to almost any BBS package as far back as '86, maybe even farther. Isn't that prior art? Somone need to trump this guy before he makes it impossible for anyone to run services.