establishing patentable claims is actually pretty easy , the PTO will allow you to continually amend your claims until these satisfy their conditions for novelty. Patents surrounding processes encoded as software algorithms are especially liberal.
That said , it's not likely IMO that any of these companies are going to sue the JSF. Patent litigation is very expensive , the JSF doesn't have sufficient assets to make it an attractive target , and any attempt to enforce their patents would likely scare the bezeesus out of AOL , MSN , IBM etc.. who would then contribute to a common defense against the plaintiff a/o sue them for infringement on the multiple patents that they themselves hold on this area. one reason that the more dire predictions related to the excesses of 'software patents' haven't come true is probably that their widespread enforcement could likely provoke a sort of MAD within the software industry. David ----- Original Message ----- From: "Peter Saint-Andre" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 10:42 AM Subject: Re: [JDEV] integrity messenger questions > IIRC, the bot folks applied for a patent. There's a big difference between > applying and receiving. :) > > Peter > > -- _______________________________________________ jdev mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev
