Re: [debian-knoppix] Fwd: patent infringement
On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:58:47PM +0200, Teófilo Ruiz Suárez wrote:
> El 13-may-2003 a las 22:42:12, Klaus Knopper escribió:
> > On Tue, May 13, 2003 at 10:30:54PM +0200, Jose Carlos Garcia Sogo wrote:
> > > El día 13 may 2003, Klaus Knopper escribía:
> > > > FYI.
> > > >
> > > > -Klaus
> > > >
> > > > ----- Forwarded message from CI Group <cigroup@lycos.co.uk> -----
> > > > Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 12:36:09 -0700
> > > > From: CI Group <cigroup@lycos.co.uk>
> > > > Subject: patent infringement
> > > >
> > > > hello there,
> > > >
> > > > your knoppix-customize project is infringing a pending patent. it is
> > >
> > > Which pending, not valid in Europe, patent?
> >
> > As you may know, it looks like the "software patents" will be
> > established in Europe this month by the European Parliament.
> >
> > See http://www.eurolinux.org/index.en.html for details.
>
> I'm not that sure of that establishment, at least we are working to avoid it.
We all do. Even small and medium companies that are still writing
proprietary software, are afraid that software patents will put them
out of business soon. It does not look too good, though, at the
moment, as far as I heared.
> > > I can claim that I hold a
> > > patent on the wheel.
> >
> > Sorry to disappoint you. The wheel was already patented by
> > John Michael Keogh in May 2001, australian innovation patent
> > no. 2001 1000 12 (see http://www.ipmenu.com/archive/AUI_2001100012.pdf).
>
> Damn, they were faster than me :-S
Well, Mr. Keorgh says that he is not going to claim license fees anytime
soon. His patent was kind of a proof-of-concept. You should really read his
paper. It even has pictures of his invention, so nobody could say that
he was obfuscating his intention. ;-)
> > > > requested of you to take it offline and inform the developers of this
> > > > infringement to prevent any future clashes in court.
> > >
> > > I want to know which is this patent so prior art can be found, just in
> > > case.
> >
> > I already requested information about this claim. Unfortunately, the
> > mail sender did not reveal his companies address or legal contact
> > information.
>
> I can send emails like this to any project, but they really have to give us
> more information about the patent, where it is valid... so much.
Yes. Actually, it may not be vaild yet but, as he wrote "pending", so he is
possibly working on getting the monopoly on "customizing a CD" in order to
claim license fees from all people who are actually doing it. His mail
was very vague, and the header trace from lycos shows that he probably used
a university computer for sending it.
I would not be too concerned about this yet, and I just sent the claim
to the list because it is related to Knoppix development and gives an
interesting insight on the topic of software patents, even for very
small and simple programs like knoppix-customize.
> Let's work for an Free of patents Europe. Could you put a No Patents banner
> in the web?
I have thought about this, but I'm afraid that it would lead to more
confusion than understanding for visitors. Most people in the "outside
world" are not aware about the meaning of software licenses, development
models and patents, and explainig all that on the Knoppix webpage would
make it even more overloaded and make it look like Knoppix was a
"political" project, which it isn't.
When software patents become a real danger in europe, closing the
project webpage as a last resort would probably have a much bigger
impact than adding banners that are not understood by most visitors
right now.
Just my thoughts.
Regards
-Klaus Knopper
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