The US Patent Office is a mess and I suspect that most software patents
like this one are not valid since their are lots of examples of prior
art. This patent would be challenged by every big company if the owners
ever tried to enforce it. They would have a hard time proving that they
were the first to build a RIA.
There is a bigger problem in the making.
The proposed US law to move the patent process to a "first-to-file"
basis will be the end of open source development and be a big impediment
to any custom software work.
This is a serious issue and the American business community had better
get their act together and put a stop to that proposed law.
What the new law appears to do is to say that it does not matter who
invents something, it only matters who files for the patent first.
This will mean that anyone can monitor open source projects looking for
new ideas and then file patents on them.
They only have to extract the core of the idea, describe it and go. They
do not have to disclose how they discovered it and only have to worry
that someone else is applying for the same stolen idea at the same time.
The original author then has to notice that the patent application has
been filed and protest to the Patent Office within some delay (60 days
or some relatively short period). This means that every open source
project will have to employ a full-time patent lawyer to protect the
work. Every little detail will have to be patented to protect your right
to use the code that you write and you will have to monitor each day's
patent filings and prepare a legal objection to each patent that is
filed on ideas already in common use.
This is obviously being backed by the big companies(IBM, Microsoft,SCO)
and patent squatting operations that can afford to set up a poaching
operation to find new ideas from open source projects and patent them
before the authors realize that the idea is worth patenting.
The impact on American business will be huge over the long term., if you
think of all of the software that is based on open source and the
chilling effect that this will have on custom software development.
You will not be able to write a program for a client or within an IT
department without patenting everything that you suspect might be
innovative for fear of waking up in 2 years to find out that someone is
knocking on your door saying that they patented the process long after
you wrote the program and that you or your employer or your customer are
in violation of their patent even if you wrote the code long before they
applied for a patent.
You can not be sure when you write the code even if you check for
existing patents.
Each programmer will have to provided with a patent lawyer to do the
searches and prepare the documentation to file patents and to negotiate
license agreements for ideas already patented. The cost for business
will be huge.
This law is slowly being pushed through the US Congress - drug companies
seem to be behind this as well.
If you are an American or have American clients, urge them to write
their elected representatives to warn against this law.
If you are outside the US, write to your elected representatives to urge
them to protest to the US government and start the process to cease to
recognize US Patents based on this proposed law.
If we wait for the law to be passed, there will be years of chaos and
endless litigation before the law can be repealed.
This document promotes first-to file.
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309089107?OpenDocument
This is a blog that discusses the progress of the bill through Congress.
http://promotetheprogress.com/archives/2006/01/more_smoke_sign.html
Ron
stefano wrote:
I found it while browsing, read it and remained stuck...
Take a look, please
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1
&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,000,180.WKU.&OS=PN/7,000,180&RS=P
N/7,000,180
...It sounds strange to me (I am from Italy)...but...If this
applies...wow...Will we have to pay for royalties ??
I know the above is not CODING MATTERS but...
Bye
Stef
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