On Tue, 12 Jul 2005 14:00:51 -0700, Michael G Schwern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Barbie's journal, via Ovid, made me aware of patent EP1170667 "Software > Package Verification" granted last month in the EU. > http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1170667 Contact Steffen Beyer mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.engelschall.com/u/sb/download/ He *works* at the european patent bureau > It appears to patent basic software testing frameworks. There is a nine > month window to oppose this patent. I believe Test::Harness constitutes > prior art but IANAL. I would like to speak with a lawyer. Does anyone > happen to know an EU patent attorney who is willing to do a little pro bono > work? At this point I only want an educated reading of the patent to > determine if Test::Harness may be prior art. > > I've contacted the EFF's staff attorney about this but he's not familiar > with EU patent laws and recommended I find someone who is. I've also > attempted to contact the Inventors listed on the patent (valid email > addresses are difficult to find these days) in the hopes of discussing this > programmer-to-programmer and cut through the legal BS. Haven't heard > back yet. > > Here is my figuring on how Test::Harness is prior art: > It includes the control (Test::Harness), framework (Test.pm, Test::More, > etc..) and modules (*.t files) as outlined in claim 1. It can handle many > test files (claim 2). It has the ability to order the execution of test > files based on the filename which serves as a priority (claims 3 and 4). > It has means to indicate if a given module is active or inactive (claim 5, > 6 and 7) by the module issuing a "skip" flag. > http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Harness/lib/Test/Harness/TAP.pod#Skipping_tests > > Test modules are typically stored as individual files, usually ending in .t, > in a directory, usually t/ (claim 8). Test::Harness can be told the order > in which tests are to be run. MakeMaker specifically runs test files in > alphabetical order by filename (claims 9, 10, 11, 12). Test::Harness only > recently added support for non-file based testing but JUnit and the > Smalltalk testing frameworks handle tests in software objects (claim 13). > > The rest of the claims appear to repeat 1-13 in legalese. > > -- H.Merijn Brand Amsterdam Perl Mongers (http://amsterdam.pm.org/) using Perl 5.6.2, 5.8.0, 5.8.5, & 5.9.2 on HP-UX 10.20, 11.00 & 11.11, AIX 4.3 & 5.2, SuSE 9.2 & 9.3, and Cygwin. http://www.cmve.net/~merijn Smoking perl: http://www.test-smoke.org, perl QA: http://qa.perl.org reports to: [EMAIL PROTECTED], perl-qa@perl.org
