RE: Pei Wei's ViolaWWW project: Was it prior art?

The patent laws do not require an inventor to actually build any embodiment of an invention in order to patent it. He merely has to provide an "enabling" description that would allow others to build and use it. 
-Micah

-----Original Message-----
From: Richard M. Smith [mailto:rms@computerbytesman.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 5:58 AM
To: 'W3C Public Web Plugins List'
Subject: RE: Pei Wei's ViolaWWW project: Was it prior art?



At the time that Mike Doyle applied for the '906 patent in October 1994,
did he have working software yet?  He didn't ship his TCL applet toolkit
until November 1996.

Richard

-----Original Message-----
From: public-web-plugins-request@w3.org
[mailto:public-web-plugins-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Steven Pemberton
Sent: Thursday, September 04, 2003 8:50 AM
To: Richard M. Smith; W3C Public Web Plugins List
Subject: Re: Pei Wei's ViolaWWW project: Was it prior art?



> Does anyone on the list know why the judge in the Eolas/Microsoft '906
> patent trial refuse to allow the jury to hear about Pei Wei's ViolaWWW
> work?  In particular, was it an issuing timing or was the Viola system
> somehow different than Mike Doyle's work?

If I understand it right, the judge decided that Pei Wei's system wasn't
published in a suitable way to make it acceptable prior art.

Prior art isn't just that you did it earlier, but that you also
published it
for all the world to see.

Steven Pemberton

Received on Thursday, 4 September 2003 11:00:52 UTC