Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 01:22:45 -0700 From: Allen Campbell <allenc@verinet.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Incessant patent babble (Was: A BSD-licensed GUI toolkit?) Message-ID: <36E4DA55.B7D8204F@verinet.com> References: <199903081845.LAA25028@usr04.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote: > > > > How does this interact with the recent patent issued to Microsoft > > > regarding style sheets? > > > > > > Specifically, have you obtained a license to use that patent yet? > > > If not, then anything involving style sheets is pretty much a > > > wasted effort, at this point. > > > > As you know, they have made no attempt to enforce this patent, and > > if they did, Prior Art would expose this for the absurdity that it is, > > which is why they won't. This is born out by the fact that Microsoft has > > already publicly stated that a blanket license exists without explicit > > permission for anyone using style sheets. Attempting to reverse this > > at some point in the future would fail. > > I guess that's why the August 1980 Scientific American article > on public key cryptography precluded RSA getting a patent on > product-of-two-primes trap-door algorithms. > > Oh. Wait. It didn't. Now, unfortunately, it is illegal to send secure messages without a license from RSA. Oh. Wait. It isn't. I'll bet Microsoft's patent would be even easier to render irrelevant. > > Personally, I wish they would try to enforce it. The Justice Department > > would have a field day with it, and in the end this little matter would > > be cleared up. > > I believe they would be successful. As successful as Unisys's GIF > compression algorithm enforcement regarding Terry Welch's addition > to the Lempel-Ziv algorithm, or AT&T enforcement of the XOR-a-cursor > and BLIT patents (both of which shouldn't have been granted, based > on their obviousness). What difference have any of these patents made? How much revenue has Unisys actually realized as a result? How many images have been made inaccessible for the lack of unencumbered GIF's? I believe Compuserve has some claim to GIF's also. Perhaps the fates of these companies (Compuserve particularly) should serve as an omen to Microsoft :) One or two minor tweaks to style sheets and a new buzz word name and _bang_, the same ignorance that led to the patent being awarded in the first place now makes it impossible to collect on. This would be the fate of style sheets should Microsoft attempt to cash in on that ridiculous patent. Go forth; implement style sheets. Give it a better name while you're at it. At least with Boggle there was a credible threat. :) > Terry Lambert > terry@lambert.org > --- > Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present > or previous employers. -- Allen Campbell | Lurking at the bottom of the allenc@verinet.com | gravity well, getting old. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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