On 13-Dec-2008, at 19:32 , has wrote:
On 12 Dec 2008, at 23:41, Conan C. Albrecht wrote:
IANAL, but in my watching of open source projects for many years,
if you have prior work to the patent, you're fine. If they decide
to sue you, you can just show that your project predates the
patent. This one was filed in 2007, so I think things like
appscript are fine. (does appscript predate June 8, 2007?) Again,
I'm not a lawyer.
Don't worry, IANAL either.:) Anyway, appscript first appeared in
2003. Ditto aeve, which also used SB-style dynamic class creation to
build its API. Come to think of it, Apple's open-source RubyOSA
project pretty much copies SB's approach throughout, even down to
its semi-automatic 'implicit get' mechanism. Given that RubyOSA was
originally released in summer 2006 I wonder if it also counts as
invalidating prior art?
Don't forget the original MacPython applescript interfaces. Created by
Guido and me between 1996 and 2000, if I remember correctly.
I think the various other non-Applescript OSA implementations (what
was the name of that database-like package again?) don't count as
prior art for this patent because of the "automatically build glue
classes" clause, but the original MacPython OSA interfaces definitely
did that.
So, we have lots of validating prior art available. Question is: (a)
is it worth the time/effort to fight this patent, and (b) if it is,
when is the best time to do so.
I know some people who have been involved in patent fights, I will ask
around.
Could other people share their insights too, and/or ask around?
Hmm, one of the inventors is our old friend Bill Bumgarner. Bill, are
you still on the list? Can you say anything about this patent?
--
Jack Jansen, <jack.jan...@cwi.nl>, http://www.cwi.nl/~jack
If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- Emma
Goldman
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