> Is US Patent 7028023 valid? It's clearly invalid, due to the existence of huge amounts of prior art.
If corporations want to waste their money on patenting things like this, let them do so. Having done some expert witness work for some large US computer corporations, I welcome this as a potential money-making opportunity for fellow geeks. There's no way this patent would stand up in court, but if the patentee starts proceedings, some computer experts are going to get well paid for the preliminary work needed to persuade them to back down. That the US patent system is broken has been obvious for some years. Unfortunately Europe seems to be heading in a similar direction, but hopefully it will learn from America's mistakes. David
