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Parties Behind Eolas Patent Reexam Revealed
theodp continues "According to a 4-27 Interview Summary, the USPTO presented Eolas with a 10-14 letter signed by in-house counsel from Microsoft, AOL and Macromedia, a 10-15 letter from Adobe, and a 10-22 letter from the law firm of Sidley Austin (aka Microsoft's lawyers) in connection with its proposed rejection of Eolas' patent claims. All predated the 10-24 letter from the W3C's counsel as well as Berners-Lee's widely-publicized 10-28 letter, which seems unlikely to have prompted the USPTO's detailed 10-30 Reexam Order. The W3C has repeatedly had no comment when asked if the 'newly cited art' provided in its 10-24 filing had already been supplied earlier to the USPTO by others. UPDATE: In response, the W3C's Danny Weitzner points out that the preceding words are mine and should not be confused with those of a distinguished journalist."
let's face it; software patenting is a rich boys club; or another manifestation of the motto "the one with the most money wins". There are thousands of patents like this; scads of unoriginal montages of half-baked and recycled ideas, cleverly disguised and slopped up to the USPO, and approved, cha ching.
It takes this kind of outrage and political pressure to get one patent reviewed. What chance does the small software company have protecting itself against patents with a lineage of prior art? It's also a positive feedback system; patents breed patents, just look at the crazy exponential explosion of USPO patents over the last five years. And sitting in the middle of the web is the black widow, the USPO, raking in the fees while spending precious little fix the spiraling problem. Once practical answer: maybe register your software company in the Cayman Islands or Vanuatu, or some other such place and take your international profits offshore. Better defensive legal system; and better protection against the system fueled by common-revenue-oriented legislation and wayward lawyers.
consider coffee a lubricant that helps one penetrate the coding zone
I vaiguely remember that the Amiga OS 3 had an application called Multiview which allowed extensible embedded viewing of almost everything with the correct plugins (Called datatypes if I remember correctly). I dunno if this is the same thing though, but i think it predates the Web completely (Although only by a year or two). Hmm, have to dig out my old Amiga and check.
After grant of a patent, any person (in Europe, this does not include the patent proprietor) can challenge the granted patent with all prior art available. And this person is party to the proceedings; the European Patent Office coordinates the procedure and judges it.
Remark to be made here is that in first instance, the EPO is not very willing to revoke a patent (the examiner of the grant procedure is in the opposition division as well), but appeal may be a good remedy.
I heard that the US patent law may be amended to allow inter partes proceedings for invalidation/re-examination. Any news on that?
No amount of eloquence or quality of argument is as persuasive as a sufficiently large wad of cash (even if said wad of cash is used indirectly). This is why the EU Commission will, in the end, not listen to Moglen and Lessig, and will instead listen to Microsoft and the other multinational corporations.
Use 'slashdot stuff' in the subject line in any email you send me if you want to get past the spam filter.
Someone once said something along the lines that it was only because they had stood on the shoulders of giants that they had achieved so much.
Perhaps the only fair solution is to limit patients to a maximum life of 2 years, and why not do the same for copyright too?
Ok I see the point if you invent create something unique that people are prepared to pay for then you should be entitled to some reward and a patient/ copyright gives you exclusive rights for a time and the opportunity to make some money by granting you a monopoly on this but for how long should independent development be halted?
very rarely if at all does something come without development using somebody elses work and idea's.
This Post is unique and the words I choose and the order I place them is mine alone. However they start with the basis of an article on slashdot, using technology that was developed by somebody else. If I had to pay for everything i did that used somebody elses work in someway or had to check to see who's copyrights i might be infringing I wouldn't be able to do anything and niether could you!
If we want the computer industry to stagnate then lets continue the madness and copyright and patent everything and why stop there.
Short limited life patents and copyrights seem to be the only sensible solution.
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