From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Jun 21 9:25: 7 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mooseriver.com (ip52023.transbay.net [209.133.52.23]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4C72F37B51B for ; Wed, 21 Jun 2000 09:25:01 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jgrosch@mooseriver.com) Received: (from jgrosch@localhost) by mooseriver.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) id JAA80481; Wed, 21 Jun 2000 09:24:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jgrosch) Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2000 09:24:26 -0700 From: Josef Grosch To: David Schwartz Cc: Rahul Siddharthan , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: BT patents hyperlinks... Message-ID: <20000621092426.A80373@mooseriver.com> Reply-To: jgrosch@mooseriver.com References: <20000621042623.A78879@mooseriver.com> <000701bfdb77$adfd40f0$021d85d1@youwant.to> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 1.0.1i In-Reply-To: <000701bfdb77$adfd40f0$021d85d1@youwant.to>; from davids@webmaster.com on Wed, Jun 21, 2000 at 04:56:05AM -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Wed, Jun 21, 2000 at 04:56:05AM -0700, David Schwartz wrote: > > > Another example of what a pathetic joke the US patent office has become. > > > > Josef > > For the record, the rule that allowed this to happen has been eliminated. > New patents will expire 20 years after they are filed, regardless of when > they are issued. Unfortunately, this patent (like the RSA patent) is in the > block that predate the new rule, so they get the longer of 17 years after > issue or 20 years after filing. This means that patents that take a long > time to issue may come into affect many years after people have started > adopting the technology believing it to be in the public domain. True. British Telecom applied for the patent in the US in 1980 and was awarded the patent in 1989. Long before the web became popular but long after Ted Nelson published his paper in 1965. Josef -- Josef Grosch | Another day closer to a | FreeBSD 4.0 jgrosch@MooseRiver.com | Micro$oft free world | UNIX for the masses To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message