In a patent infringement case, a defendant may argue that: 1.) A patent is invalid because it was granted in spite of the fact that knowledge embodied in the patent already existed (in other words, the invention is not new, Sections 102(a) and (b)). 2.) Anything new in the patent is trivial and obvious to one skilled in the industry (the non-obviousness requirement of Section 103). 3.) A patentee withheld material information from the patent examiner. 4.) Even if a patent is valid, pantentees can lose their patent rights if they misuse their patent. This most often occurs if the patentee tries to extend patent monopoly by tying the sale of a patented product to a nonpatented product. This is a viololation of Section 3 of the Clayton Act, which is an antitrust statue.
I think this guy's patent is invalid because it is trivial and obvious to the web development industry. JavaScript, XML, XSLT, DOM, and DHTML are all obvious to our industry. Also, RIA development is not new, it is just catching wind. You probably remember when the patentee of the Active-X object persued Macromedia for using their patented process for embedding swf's in a web page. Well, Balthaser could have patented the XMLHttpRequest object, if he had created it, but that is not the case. He could not, however, patent the use of Assyncronous JavaScript and XML because it is not a technology itself, but the collections of obvious technologies used together (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX). That would be like patenting the use of HTML with CSS. That's my two cents. I am not a legal advisor so my conclusions don't carry any weight, but the four defenses to patent infringement listed above are straight from the book, "Legal Enviroment of Business in the Information Age" by David L. Baumer and J.C. Poindexter.. Aaron Roberson On 2/24/06, Claude Schneegans <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >>Actually, I think what we should hope is that the patent is reviewed and > found to be invalid due to lack of patentability. > > According to the article the patent also covers Java. > Isn't it already owned by Sun? > > -- > _______________________________________ > REUSE CODE! Use custom tags; > See http://www.contentbox.com/claude/customtags/tagstore.cfm > (Please send any spam to this address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]) > Thanks. > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:233501 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
