Date: Fri, 30 Mar 2001 03:44:33 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: "Beech Rintoul" <akbeech@anchoragerescue.org>, "Kyle" <freebsd@sysmach.com>, <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: RE: patenting the digit 1 and 0 Message-ID: <002201c0b90e$ca318ea0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <01032916345402.05457@galaxy.anchoragerescue.org>
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>-----Original Message----- >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Beech Rintoul >> >You can't patent something that is already public domain. Now if he can >improve them and use them in a new windoze version.......... > Jokes aside, I beg to disagree, you most certainly can patent something that's in the public domain, if the patent office researchers happen to overlook the prior use. There's been many instances of this happening. It's harder than heck to get a patent invalidated once it's issued, mostly the Patent Office tells you to get lost and fight it out directly with the patent holder. Granted, if you can show good examples of prior use, the patent is not enforcable, but if the patent holder decides to sue you then your still going to end up in court. While you eventually will prevail it's a big waste of time and takes a lot of money that takes a long time to get back, and the threat of this has been used by the patent holders just as effectively to muzzle competition. This is the entire controversy over the Unisys patent on the compression in .GIF files. (which fortunately expires this year) Ted Mittelstaedt tedm@toybox.placo.com Author of: The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide Book website: http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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