RE: Patent threat over RDF?

Did this in any way tell you to cease and desist your current efforts
pending an investigation of possible patent right violations?

You know something folks? I've heard the name of this company before in
relation to patent claims. Have to search through news, but I know this is
familiar.

Addendum -- a quick search of Google found this article
http://www.pearlltd.com/content/news/10-27-99.html

Shelley

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Uche Ogbuji
> Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 8:30 AM
> To: www-rdf-interest@w3.org; www-rdf-comments@w3.org
> Subject: Patent threat over RDF?
>
>
> To start the New Year on a toasty note, I received a bulky Fedex
> from a Terry
> K. Qualey at an IP law firm.  It appears that tey represent a
> company called
> Unified Data Technologies, Ltd., holders of U.S. Patent s #5,684,985 and
> #6,092,077, as well as, to quote the letter, "other applicationsa
> pending on
> this technology that are currently confidential."
>
> A couple more relevant excerpts:
>
> "Implementations of the well-known [RDF] and [RSS] technologies,
> among other
> uses, may be covered by one or more of the claims of UDTL's patents."
>
> "UDTL is currently offering opportunities to either jointly
> develop software,
> or to license the technology from UDTL."
>
> Well, if they've sent this pleasantry to a developer of an
> open-source RDF
> implementation, then they have probably sent it to others as
> well.  Has anyone
> else received this?  The bulk of the package is copy of the
> patent texts.  A
> quick skim makes it quite look as if they are trolling: I don't
> see any but
> the most tenuous connection to RDF.  But I gether from my
> uninformed, anxious
> reading on patent warfare that merit hardly matter, but rather
> the ability for
> the patent holder to ruin true or perceived comeptitors with
> frivolous claims
> that bear the dubious stamp of the USPTO.
>
> Considering the goals for a distributed and multi-platform
> Semantic Web, this
> letter seems to be an anarchist's grenade.  What is there to be
> done about it?
>
> O yeah.  Happy New Year.
>
>
> --
> Uche Ogbuji                               Principal Consultant
> uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com               +1 303 583 9900 x 101
> Fourthought, Inc.                         http://Fourthought.com
> 4735 East Walnut St, Boulder, CO 80301-2537, USA
> XML strategy, XML tools (http://4Suite.org), knowledge management
>
>
>

Received on Wednesday, 2 January 2002 12:51:37 UTC