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MIT Lecturer Defends His Standing As Email Inventor

Posted by timothy on from the for-some-values-of-invented dept.

hapworth writes "IT professionals were recently outraged to hear that the Smithsonian acquired some code from MIT lecturer VA Shiva Ayyadurai who has convinced no less august pubs than Time Magazine and The Washington Post that he invented email. While objectors howl on forums and message boards, VA Shiva Ayyadurai spoke up today to defend his standing as email's creator, claiming he doesn't regret not patenting it because he doesn't believe in software patents."

3 of 249 comments (clear)

  1. Maybe... by pedantic+bore · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... but Ray Tomlinson at BBN invented the use of the "@" sign.

    --
    Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
    1. Re:Maybe... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Just your mother

  2. Re:Doesn't believe in patents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dude, you're talking about the mail command versus email -- E mail! Don't you know that if you take something that already exists and put an e or an i in front of it, it's completely new computer wizardry? The entire USPTO is based around this concept. Anyone with a UID of fewer than seven figures should know this stuff.