Well there are all kinds of nonsensical patents on the books but a lot of them are never enforced. I don't see how the web mapping patent would fulfill the non-obvious requirement- but there are a lot of stupid courts out there.
- bri On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:14 AM, Bill Thoen <bth...@gisnet.com> wrote: > You might be surprised what people might be able to get away with, though. > There's been repeated attempts to patent "web mapping" for example, and if > it wasn't for the efforts of a few dedicated people, there would now be > patents in both Britain and the USA on displaying maps over the web. But the > threat is not dead yet, believe it or not, and it may culminate in a battle > between Microsoft and Google sometime in the near future. Check out Daniel > Morissette's blog entry for Feb 21, 2009, "Microsoft Patents the Map" at > http://www.systemed.net/blog/?p=68. If Microsoft really uses the Multimap > patent to put the bite on Google, then you can bet your bippy that it'll > affect your web mapping business too. > > If reading that article brings your blood to a righteous boil, and you want > to know more about who really invented web mapping, see Carl Reed's 2004 > article, "Intellectual Property, Patents, and Web Mapping: Historical > Perspective" at http://portal.opengeospatial.org/files/?artifact_id=28360. > > - Bill Thoen > GISnet - www.gisnet.com > > Brian Russo wrote: > >> I've seen legends similar to that before; afraid I can't offer anything >> solid in terms of prior art examples but it's hardly as revolutionary as >> they seem to think. >> Pretty absurd if you ask me; >> On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:34 AM, "René A. Enguehard" >> <ahugen...@gmail.com<mailto: >> ahugen...@gmail.com>> wrote: >> >> I suspect they might be applying for the patent but in for quite a >> surprise when it gets rejected. Features for maps would be very >> tricky to patent and, more importantly, not in the interest of the >> general public. As such the patent applications would probably get >> rejected. Would we really want people patenting things like >> projections, north arrows, scale bars or legends? I don't think it >> would be productive and suspect any patent office in its right >> mind would see it the same way. >> >> Patents were created to help people protect their ideas for a >> length of time so they could reap the rewards of their work and >> refine it without fear of being copied or undercut. This works >> very well for many things but fails miserably for conceptual >> things like maps or layouts for books or posters. This is why many >> patent offices now require people to patent "systems" rather than >> "things". I don't see how a wrap-around map could be explained as >> a system. >> >> René >> IANAL >> >> Landon Blake wrote: >> >> >> The latest issue of the ACSM Bulletin had an interesting >> article about a map matrix that wraps around the edge of a >> paper map. It seems the company that is using this feature of >> hard copy map design is applying for a patent. I didn’t even >> think you could get a patent a feature of a paper map. It got >> me wondering who holds the patent on the use of a north arrow >> and scale. >> >> At any rate, here is the article if you are interested in >> reading it: >> >> http://www.webmazine.org/issues/current/documents/wrap.pdf >> >> I couldn’t find the patent application, or I would have posted >> a link to it. Let me know if you have any comments. >> >> Landon >> >> > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > Discuss@lists.osgeo.org > http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss >
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