Marty Fouts wrote:
>
> I don't know a lawyer I would trust who would give free legal advice on a
> mailing list without the usual disclaimers.
You mean 'I am a lawyer but this is not legal advice'. Hmm, I think the
fact that it's on a mailing list and doesn't say 'here's my advice'
should be disclaimer enough. Of course IANAL, so I may be attempting to
lead you into a legal deathtrap ;-)
> And I don't care what you've done elsewhere, you have, here, been misleading
> about patent law. I stand by my recommendation that people who are
> interested should read the Nolo Press book and then, if they have specific
> issues, consult an IP lawyer on those particular issues.
Well, I like your version more than Jeff's because if you're right then
I still have time to make a whitehat patent application for my better
atomic commit method. What's a whitehat patent? It's one that helps
fence in companies who want to use patented algorithms in closed source
software. Whitehat patents will help convince the blackhats that it's
in their interest to disallow algorithm patents and put things back the
way they were before.
Have I said publicly that I'm waiting to hear from NetApp about whether
they're going to write a GPL-compatible license for the patents in
question? And thus remove all doubt about whether they conflict with my
work. I'm not sure I said that - I'm saying it now. So far, not a word
out of NetApp management, though I know they're well aware of the
issue. My idea is that by waiting patiently and not accusing them of
being turds that they will find it a lot easier to take a deep breath
and do the right thing.
> In addition to the Nolo press, by the way, the US Patent Office now has a
> web site with good general information for those people who are interested
> in US patent issues. (http://www.uspto.gov/) I suppose there is a similar
> web site for people interested in EU patent specifics as well. One of the
> serveral ways in which you were mistaken in your assertions is that you've
> neglected to clarify where US Patent Law differs from Patent Law in other
> jurisdictions. You may be in Utah, but not everyone on this mailing list
> is.
Yes, it's thoughtful of the USPTO to give us free access to documents
that state in precise terms exactly how we are being screwed. What I
really want to see on the site is "patents on software are no longer
allowed, and we have invalidated all the ones that we granted in error".
-- Daniel - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Oct 07 2000 - 21:00:20 EST