Patents

[Michael Freedman <michael.freedman@oracle.com>]

Here is the EU patent application/information cited by WebCollage:
http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/fetch.jsp?DISP=25&IDB=0&SORT=1181023-KEY&LANG=ENG&LANGUAGE=ENG&SERVER_TYPE=19&FORM=SEP-0%2FHITNUM%2CB-ENG%2CDP%2CMC%2CPA%2CABSUM-ENG&IA=IL2001000337&TOTAL=1&C=0&SEARCH_IA=IL2001000337&START=1&QUERY=WebCollage&DBSELECT=PCT&TYPE_FIELD=256&RESULT=1&IDOC=478325&DISPLAY=STATUS

Note:  see in the Documents tab for a reference to and copies of two US 
patent filings which this one references.

Here is a recently filed US application:
http://patft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6865593.PN.&OS=PN/6865593&RS=PN/6865593

Here is a WebCollage US patent that has been granted:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.html&r=1&p=1&f=G&l=50&d=PG01&S1=webcollage.AS.&OS=an/webcollage&RS=AN/webcollage

For those of you whose companies continue to have concerns about 
WebCollage's IPR claims, I encourage you to review the EU patent 
application cited by the wsrp 1.0 IPR statement (the first one above).  
I also encourage you to have your legal department evaluate whether this 
patent applies to WSRP.  I am no legal expert but this application seems 
to apply for a patent defining a process where a service component is 
embeded in a host page by [URL] reference that is resolved/executed by 
the client.  I.e. it may not cover the case where the host 
aggragates/constructs the page including remote components prior to 
returning this to the client.  It interesting to note that the more 
recently filed US application cited above doesn't seem to suffer from 
this deficiency.  It seems to more broadly cover direct 
consumer/producer communication.

Anyway, I offer this information/references hoping that a way to work 
around the logjam of interacting with WebCollage is by getting each of 
our legal departments comfortable that either the IPR cited in 
referenced application isn't applicable or that its so general in that 
it impacts all portal implementations where part of the portal content 
is not constructed locally as to therefore change the nature of the 
question/issue.
   -Mike-