Re: rough first impressions

On Tuesday, April 15, 2003, at 05:21 PM, James Knight wrote:

> This is a bogus argument. Absolutely everything is patented.

That is, of course, a gross overstatement.

>  The only sensible path is to design as if there were no patents,  
> until forced to do otherwise by some patent holder.

In the particular case we're discussing, a real company, Intentional  
Software, has based their entire business model on this feature, so you  
can bet they'll be enforcing their patents if they feel their business  
is threatened. Sorry you don't like software/business method patents -  
neither do I, and with any luck some corporation with deep pockets will  
eventually take this issue to the Supreme Court and have them struck  
down. Till then, they are the law in the US. Pretending they aren't  
won't make them go away.

You might want to look at these:

<http://intentsoft.com/> The company that Simonyi founded after leaving  
MS with the right to use his patents.

<http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- 
Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch- 
bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F5790863>  One of  
Simonyi's patents from his MS days.

<http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- 
Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch- 
bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2F6078746> Another  
of Simonyi's.

<http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph- 
Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search- 
adv.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&S1=6,467,086&OS=6,467,086&RS=6,467,086> And  
this one of Gregor Kiczales', who is the other founder of Intentional  
Software.

> This is also a sound legal strategy, as willful infringement gets a  
> greater punishment than ignorant infringement.

But now that you're aware of these patents, your infringement would be  
willful - assuming that you were unaware of this company before,which I  
doubt 'cause it was pretty big news when Simonyi left MS to found  
Intentional Software with Kiczales.

An even better legal strategy is to consult an IP lawyer if you're in  
doubt, rather than wasting R & D time on someone else's IP.


Raf


Raffael Cavallaro, Ph.D.
[email protected]