RE: [topicmaps-comment] RDF and RSS patented by Canadian company?

["Mason, James David (MXM) " <mxm@ornl.gov>]

Patents in IT, particularly for software systems, are useful mostly for
intimidation; they are pretty hard to enforce. (My group has applied for one
on the "Ferret" system, mostly for the PR value of having a patent; we have
no expectation of being able to enforce it.)

The patent in question here was granted in 1997. The TM community can take
some comfort that the TM project proposal was approved by the old WG8 in May
of 1996, and we issued a CD text along with the proposal, showing that our
ideas were already pretty mature. And before we made the proposal, there was
considerable history in the GCA and Davenport for CApH. Furthermore, we had
HyTime (1992) to establish the basic framework for polydimensional
hyperlinked systems. HyTime, of course, had a history going back even
further. So we have a good record of prior art.

The ISO 13250 editors can probably come up with plenty of records of how
HyTime and TMs came to pass, including software developed by TechnoTeacher,
long before this supposed patent was even applied for.

Jim Mason

James David Mason, Ph.D.

Y-12 National Security Complex
Bldg. 9113, M.S. 8208
P.O. Box 2009
Oak Ridge, Tennessee 37831-8208

+1 865 574 6973

Chairman, ISO/IEC JTC1/SC34
http://www.y12.doe.gov/sgml/sc34/ornlsc34oldhome.htm


> -----Original Message-----
> From:	H. Holger Rath [SMTP:holger.rath@empolis.com]
> Sent:	Tuesday, January 08, 2002 7:12 AM
> To:	XTM Working Group
> Cc:	Graham Moore
> Subject:	[topicmaps-comment] RDF and RSS patented by Canadian
> company?
> 
> Hi everybody,
> 
> Just read the news that a Canadian company claims to
> have a patent on RDF/ RSS and starts to sue implementors
> of RDF/ RSS. 
> 
> Find more about this at XML.com:
> http://www.oreillynet.com/cs/weblog/view/wlg/1016
> 
> Here is the (quite unreadable) patent:
> http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/txt/ep/0797/806/
> 
> Do we (= the TM community) have to fear a similar attack against
> the Topic Map paradigm and its implementors?
> 
> Cheers,
> --Holger
> 
> -- 
> Dr. H. Holger Rath
> - Director Research & Development -
> 
> empolis * GmbH
> Bertelsmann MOHN Media Group
> Havelstr. 9, 64295 Darmstadt, Germany
> 
> phone :  +49-172-66-90-427
> fax   :  +49-6151-380-488
> 
> <mailto:holger.rath@empolis.com>
> http://www.empolis.com
> 
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