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WORRIED ABOUT THE NET

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Seems very broad and vague.
Does anyone know where patents can be viewed on-line??
 
Isn't there a law/commonly accepted principle that if a patent becomes public domain and the company does nothing to enforce it for X years, it is no longer a patent?

I'm sure I read this somewhere - correct me if I'm wrong?

Craftor

:cool:
 
After reading the article, I'n not very concerned. A couple of points come to mind.

First - this seems to be a habit with the plaintiff. Tried a similar suit 10 years ago against American Airlines with respect to automated travel reservations. After losing the case in district court, and having the appeal denied, two of the three patents were then invalidated. To me, this shows that this person is using patents for greed.

This time around, he's going after smaller companies. Companies that are more likely to settle than fight. He talks about possibly going after the big players, but they have the resources to fight back. That, IMHO, is why he's leaving them alone.

The good thing is that a number of small companies have combined their resources to fight back. I do believe they will win, and this shall pass.

Its certainly worth keeping an eye on, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein
 
completely agree with you cajun......the thing that gets me the most is the fact that someone could actually patent something that is that vague....I actually started reading the patent and it seemed to be pretty specific to travelling and travel agents....I don't understand how it relates to the internet overall.....

There is another company doing the same thing, a company called divine....

It seems to go on all the time, with RAMBUS - Intel lost face on that one.....and companies like them, trying to take advantage of the legal system.....such a shame that people just don't want to earn their money doing something productive... Erik Rudnick, CCIE No. 9545
mailto:erik@kuriosity.com
 
this seems to be the new web business model/paradigm. get a hold of a few vague patents (ie: hyperlinking from that british firm BT or something) and then sue everybody even remotely linked to the vague patent.
 
Indeed, I severerly doubt they would be able to hold that up in court, I mean the rights to E-commerce would be like saying "I own the right to using a shop as a PoS".

Common Sense normally Irons these things out and puts the greedy ppl back in their box.
 
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