in reply to Looking for old Perl CGI code

A brief look at the patent, and I have to wonder what the heck on the web does not infringe on this patent? Which, of course, gives an idea for another tactic - to find as many other technologies as possible that also infringe on this patent, and hand that research to them. Should they refuse to follow up, you may be able to claim that they are not enforcing their patent, thus you may use it at will. If you can show, for example, that Lotus Domino Go does something similar when a Lotus Notes database is behind it, you might find a deep-pocket ally ;-) (I would estimate that IBM has about equal likelihood of: fighting the patent, licensing the patent, and licensing it in such a way to donate it to open-source. Just based on past patent and open-source behaviour.)

Differently risky is to argue that the patent is invalid because it is not non-obvious to the average practitioner in the field. Kind of needs you to find a number of "experts" to pay to the stand.

Have you talked to FSF? They may be able to help find prior art or even lawyer funding, especially if you're in the US.

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Re^2: Looking for old Perl CGI code
by jdtoronto (Prior) on Oct 14, 2005 at 17:32 UTC
    My reading of the papers I can find (very few!) relating to the Nettec plc case in England is that their legal opinions and patent opinions were that the patent is not valid, or at least the British parent patent is not valid. Hence the rason I suggested that ton contact them. What that means for the US Patent is unclear to me, I am not sure if the British patent falling would affect the US Patent.

    Ablaise Limited seems to be pretty much unknown, aside from an application for a trademark their is very little on the Web about them at all. When the case against Nettec plc was launched in 2003 the court required Ablaise to deposit GBP 60,000 as security. Later it was ordered to despoit a much larger sum, the following is taken from Nettec's interim results for the first half of 2005.

    (a) Patent litigation
    On 1 April 2003 proceedings were served on Nettec plc by Ablaise Limited ("Ablaise") alleging patent infringement. Your Board received advice that there are strong arguments that the Patent in question owned by Ablaise Limited is invalid. Your Board vigorously defended the action, seeking to protect its position on costs by obtaining orders in May and October 2003 that Ablaise pay a total of £376,000 into court as security for Nettec plc's costs. Although the sum in respect of the first costs order was paid into court by Ablaise, it failed to make the second payment and accordingly Ablaise's claim was struck out on 11 December 2003.
    Your Board has received advice that there are strong arguments that the Patent owned by Ablaise Limited is invalid, and that the claim brought against Nettec plc is concluded. However, the Patent remains in existence and could be asserted in the future. Your Board has received legal advice that any further action by Ablaise impacting on Nettec plc is unlikely, and that any further proceedings brought by Ablaise would be unlikely to be successful. Consequently, no provision has been made for any further claim.
    Wherein it seems that Ablaise either did not have the resources or possibly the will to proceed with the prosecution of their claim. I see they are listed as plaintiff in another case, I wonder if this is the one that ton is involved in given the recent dates.
    ABLAISE LTD. vs. E TRADE SECURITIES, LLC.
    Court: candce
    3:2005cv03581
    Filed: 9/6/2005
    Good luck ton!

    jdtoronto

[reply]
      Hi Ton, Were you successful in finding anything of interest? Ablaise is knocking on everyone's door.
[reply]
        As a matter of fact I did. I'm not allowed to give specifics, but I suggest looking into early e-commerce sites...

        -----
        Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
        The power of man...
[reply]

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