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> Just to make things more complicated the patents have been > interpreted by the judge to be even broader than filed, though a > process called a "Markman hearing" [0], but the results of that > hearing have been sealed so aren't available for public scrutiny. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/04/16/vonage_and_verizon/ Eh? So the patent system that was originally designed to propagate the knowledge of inventions for the benefit of the public is now a closed system? "A patent is a form of protection for an invention. It is a give-and-take between society and an inventor. The inventor discloses the invention, and society gives him a time-limited monopoly to derive commercial value." http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/basics/whatis.html If what is given is no longer public, patents show their true colours - take, take take. Only now the LIMITS of that invention are no longer public knowledge in the US. The obvious result is that nobody can hope to be safe from any patent because the limits of any one patent are uncertain and could be extended at any time AFTER the case has gone to court, i.e. when the meter is running for your lawyers. Not only are patents too broad to be searched, they are now to be deemed open to even wider interpretation under CLOSED rulings! It's not new but it has to throw doubt on whether "an ethical software patent" can ever exist. The patent claim in this case? Well, originally it was how to map an IP address to an email address and then a phone number (i.e. a relational database) but quite what it actually means now and whether it is even possible to avoid this patent in simple membership records that happen to exist on a server that may also log IP data is not just uncertain, it is impossible to ascertain without going to court! If these patents were ever enforceable in the UK or Europe, all free software innovation would become impossible overnight. [0] http://biojudiciary.org/subpage1.asp?tid=163 -- Neil Williams ============= http://www.data-freedom.org/ http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/ http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/
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