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If this is that broad, it will be broadly ignored and
there will become a class action suit that winds up in front
of the US Supreme Court given means.
That is more likely than not. The wolf is threatening
the livelihood of the village. The US will not surrender
its position in the global software industry for the
sake of badly executed patent applications. The patent
office executives must know this, but are likely not in a
position to reform the system. That means it is a congressional
issue and with pressure from the courts brought by pressure
from industry, means would meet needs. At this time, feeding
the wolf is cost effective but again, the wolf gets up
every morning ravenous. Until it becomes blisteringly and
monetarily punishing, I don't know what incentive there
is to file such suits and against whom.
Meanwhile, informed parties must continually and openly debate
the issues so that they are known and congeal prior to those
actions. The American software industry must take this on
although our power does not extend to the Europeans where
the patent was filed. If there is to be resistance, it will
have to be global.
Be aware that trademarks are adjectives that can become names.
This is a thorny problem because one way to 'defend' a trademark
is to attach it to other common but untrademarked phrases. One
could easily have trademarked "HTMLEditor" that way. That is a
mess which isn't being noticed as much as the patents. It makes
it quite hard to write a decent standard when companies are
opportunistic.
len
From: Bob Wyman [mailto:bob@wyman.us]
Perhaps they should trademark their names and declare that
these names can only be used in patent claims if the inventor agrees to
pay royalties to W3C? Or, perhaps, we can just find a way to get this
business of patenting substitution of equivalents done away with.
bob wyman
[1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?patentnumber=6662341
[As always, please be aware that this is *not* an "anti-Microsoft" post.
What they are doing, no matter how wrong it may be, is no different from
what many others are doing, have done, or seek to do.]
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