Date: Wed, 27 Aug 1997 14:54:58 -0400 (EDT) From: Peter Dufault <dufault@hda.com> To: jfieber@indiana.edu (John Fieber) Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Scary lawsuit Message-ID: <199708271854.OAA05098@hda.hda.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970827132436.341m-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu> from John Fieber at "Aug 27, 97 01:34:41 pm"
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> Novadigm sues Marimba and threatens W3C. > That about describes a fairly long extensive of software > including rdist, sup, cvsup, rsync, ctm and on unix, as well as > similar freely available programs on other platforms. > > I'm no lawyer, is it permissable to get a patent on a technology > that has been in the public domain? I would hope not. The above > patent was issued in December 1996. Yes. You have to demonstrate available prior art before the date of the filing or show that it is obvious to anyone in the field and not patentable. We had some "find ." scripts 10 years back that would build tarballs and update source at clients. I expect somebody had some well known clever distribution setups in the early 1980s over uucp. When the patent is issued is manipulatable. Companies develop "stealth patents" and drag out the patent process for years (even decades) by filing addenda and then get the patent when the process is in use. There was an article about this in WSJ a few months back - (warning foggy memory here) someone was going after GM for machine vision violations when the original filing was in the late '50s. Peter -- Peter Dufault (dufault@hda.com) Realtime development, Machine control, HD Associates, Inc. Safety critical systems, Agency approval
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