Re: (Second) Last Call for XPointer 1.0

[Daniel Veillard <Daniel.Veillard@imag.fr>]

On Thu, Jan 11, 2001 at 10:14:09AM -0600, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
> Then the W3C did not do their homework.  Matching on a 
> string has prior art.  The only thing I see is that 
> if it is only the use of string matching based on 
> the URI, and the URI precludes standard Windows-like 
> path based UNC names, then they weasel out.  Otherwise, 
> there is clearly prior art and the W3C failed to 
> acknowledge it thereby creating this dilemma for themselves.

  I will just note that exhibiting prior art is not sufficient.
You also need some legal action to take place before getting a
patent removed, right ? (I would be soooo happy if I was wrong !)

  If you think that the "homework" is just to collect prior,
then it's probably something which could be done within W3C
(directly by the staff or by a public call for prior art). 
But the legal action is where the problem might get solved
and is an expensive (money, time, human, ...) process. I don't
think W3C has enough resources (money, time, human, ...) to
follow this path. And who else would take this task ?

  It's now notorious that the Patent Office doesn't do
it's homework, who else should consider its homework to
invest in costly battles for getting this fixed a posteriori ?

Daniel

Speaking for himself

-- 
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