Re: Interesting Patent

["Danny Gumport" <dgumport@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Also,
 i had a meeting with Clark Milioti (principal voice of reason) 
at eCal last week. John, you were mentioned, and I mentioned that
I had followed your postings to this group for the last
few (it has been a long time) years, and had met you earlier 
in the InSoft days as InSoft was becoming netscaped.
 it would be sooooo disappointing to think that the hard work of this
group was being turned into non-shareable tools... creating lots of
great product that are copyrighted is one thing...but patenting the
technology that is the brain child of so many people seems wrong to me.
 any info on this would be greatly appreciated.
-Danny G


pregen@egenconsulting.com wrote:
> 
> Brian, thank you for bringing this info to the list.  I see that the
> patent dates from January 1998.  My question to the list is was there
> discussion on the items referenced in the patent prior to that
> timeframe.  If so, we must resolve any potential conflicts gracefully
> here on the list.
> 
> John (Stracke), do you have some feedback you can share with us on
> this patent.  I believe it is from the company with which you are
> associated and you may be able to provide some valuable assistance and
> input.  I appreciate your help.
> 
>  BrianW45@aol.com
>  Sent by:                                     To:
>  owner-ietf-calendar@imc.org           ietf-calendar@imc.org
>                                               cc:
>  12/28/99 01:42 AM                            Subject:
>                                        Interesting Patent
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I have been interested in the ICAL specifications, and am looking
> forward to
> their final developments, but one of my collegues hapened accross a
> Patent
> which was just granted (5,960,406) which seems to patent many of the
> features
> which were developed as part of this forum.  Is that allowed?  The
> patent is
> for a product called eCal that is used in a calendar product called
> appointnet.  You can view the patent information via this link: <A
> HREF="http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&;
> p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,960,406'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,960,406&R
> S=PN/5,960,406">US Patent Office (Patent 5,960,406)</A>
> 
> I'm sure this is a matter of someone patenting a product which was
> developed
> after the specifications were developed by other parties, but I was
> wondering
> if it will cause any problems with people who want to develope
> Calandering
> software based on the RFC's from iCalendar and don't know about the
> patnet
> until they get a call from some lawyer.
> 
> Brian Westerman
> Syzygy Incorporated

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