Re: From JavaLobby News

Mike Skells wrote:
> Two points
> 1. It is common practice to patent in the UK and the EU (and lots of
> other countries). I an not sure what the 'EU is just considering ...'
> relates to. EU has software only patents ( I hold 2 software only
> patents myself filed in EU, US and 70+ countries, amongst other patents)

I have found only 1 here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6,088,367.WKU.&OS=PN/6,088,367&RS=PN/6,088,367

But that at least proves that you are not making it up ;-)

> 
> 2.  patent should be considered as valid until it is disproved, unless
> you know of some guatanteed menchanism to invalidate the patent e.g.
> prior art, it should be considered as a high risk strategy to just
> ignore it.

Shouldn't the holder of the patent first notify the other party that a possible 
breach is under way?

Seems like you propose that when writing any program you are obliged to know all 
the thousands of patents filed all over the world. Cool.

Best regards,

David

> 
> I am not a legal expert, but I believe that hosting of the download has
> little to do with the patent breach or not.
> 
> A better idea is for Sun to get guidance from their lawyers. As SUN
> contribute a significant (or more) proportion of the effort then thay
> would be the ones to be sued, along with IDEA, Eclipse et al
> 
> Mike