On 6/6/08, Alexander Baxevanis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > and an earlier patent that they also own: > > http://www.google.com/patents?id=hrmAAAAAEBAJ&dq=7,174,286 > > I think those patents were filed around 2004, and I really wonder if > such tools never existed in some form before that time. Maybe some of > the people in the list who've been in the industry for long enough can > provide some insight.
It looks like the first one is an extension of the second, which was *filed* around 2004 and granted in 2007. If "prior art" can be found (proving that such things existed before > the patent was applied for) then the patent can be declared invalid. > The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has taken up quite a few such > cases - see http://www.eff.org/issues/patents Well Axure itself existed before either patent was applied for. It was first released in 2003. Does "prior art" also cover offline practices? We've been doing annotated wireframes forever, and what both Axure and iRise have done is to take that offline practice and extend it into prototyping. They've just taken very different approaches to doing so. Maybe this is an issue where the IxDA community can liaise with EFF > and raise another case like that. That would be fabulous. Does anyone here have contacts in the EFF? - Fred ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
