in reply to European Software Patents vs. Perl?

I'd entirely agree that those kind of frivolous patents are nothing but a large scale pain in the derriere to those of us who just want to get the job done.
That, of course, doesn't go against those patents that are actually for things worthwhile, just those frivolous ones.
Take, for example that CGI patent. How quickly can you come up with some examples of this, prior to the publishing date of 1996?
Just a few seconds, I guess, which completely blows it out of the water on the prior art clauses of patents.
As for the database queries in natural language, published in 1993.. I can draw a handful of examples of this being done in university departments way prior to this.
Thus, the idea is not unique to these people, as prior art exists, and as such, the patent is invalid.
I often find that petitions don't quite cut the mustard. Lots of people sign, you hand it to the powers that be, who look at it, and say "Well, we already knew you didn't like it... What's new??".. Which, I admit, is just my view of it..
Perhaps, a better method is for each person who would sign a signature on that form to find an example of a spurious, and overwide patent in the patent office database, and decry it, proving prior art.
This way, if submitted as a "Petition with rationale", the EPO is forced to admit that there are glaring errors in the system, by the proof submitted.
And, of course, once the evidence is put in that format, in a public forum, there's no way for the powers that be to shrug it off as just a group of zealots with no backing.
Anyhow, that's just my tuppence worth,

Malk.
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Re: Re: European Software Patents vs. Perl?
by cadfael (Friar) on Nov 21, 2000 at 19:14 UTC
    Unfortunately, whether a patent is frivolous, obvious, or just plain nefarious does not shield one from letters written on the letterhead of a law firm. I rather suspect that anyone who receives such a letter is in for a fairly significant cash outlay.

    If either of these patents hold, and are enforcable on this side of the Atlantic, then we might as well shut down our web site. We have had a www server since 1993, and have been using CGI and query forms (and Perl, btw) since early 1994 to query a relational database and retrieve specified results.

    In fact, when was the Common Gateway Interface Specification first proposed? It had to have been before 1994, if we were already using it.

    -----
    "Computeri non cogitant, ergo non sunt"

[reply]
      At which point, you explain you've been running it since 1993 (webserver with CGI), which blows the prior art right up. No law company would really follow that in a European court, 'cos they know they'd lose, and have to shell out. It's non-enforcable.
      Also, for the database query one, it refers to parsing of natural language. However, using SQL, or a strict computational language is not covered by the above patent.
      It's meant to be able to extract the meaning of a user with no batabase training who says something like: "Give me a list of all the beers which are dark please, computer."
      And that's what I was referring to in my previous post of seeing that around in many places prior to the patent publication date.
      Your regular database queries are safe.
      I'll wholeheartedly agree that nothing shields you from that dreaded letterhead, but, just because a good many lawyers are vultures, doesn't mean they're stupid.
      If you give them that bit of prior art, which they know will completely blow their case out of the water in any court, they won't persue it.
      It's an annoyance, but, not insurmountable.
      Cheers,

      Malk
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