RE: Patent threat over RDF?

Interesting reading -- Jeff, thanks for this effort. You might want to be a
bit careful of your use of pejoratives (evil company); this could come back
to bite you in the butt at some future time.

In fact, be aware that these newsgroup postings as well as any online openly
accessible information is and will be monitored by the parties involved.
We'll want to keep things simple, quiet, determined, and professional at all
times. Ranting is good -- I rant all the time. I love to rant. However,
these patent letters are most likely a fishing expedition and we don't want
to say things that we might regret later.

Sorry, just repeating information you all know already.

Shelley

> -----Original Message-----
> From: www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org
> [mailto:www-rdf-interest-request@w3.org]On Behalf Of Jeff Barr
> Sent: Thursday, January 03, 2002 9:39 PM
> To: me@aaronsw.com
> Cc: uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com; jeff@vertexdev.com; edd@xml.com;
> www-rdf-interest@w3.org; www-rdf-comments@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Patent threat over RDF?
>
>
> Hi All,
>
> I have posted the text of the letter within my Patent Wiki.
> Enter at http://www.vertexdev.com/patent_wiki/index.php?page=PatentWiki,
> then head to the MainPage. I'm trying to prevent the information
> within this site from being used by the bad guys, hence the
> agreement on the front page.
>
> Jeff;
>
> > on 1/2/02 4:30 PM, Uche Ogbuji at uche.ogbuji@fourthought.com wrote:
> >
> >> To start the New Year on a toasty note, I received a bulky Fedex from
> >> a Terry K. Qualey at an IP law firm.
> >
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I'm saddened to hear this, but I hope that I can provide some help. I
> > have a non-lawyer friend who is very knowledgable about patent law,
> > especially software patents. He understands RDF reasonably well, and
> > has offered his help in this matter.
> >
> > I'd be interested if you could provide more information on the letter
> > they sent. Was it phrased agressively (i.e. did they threaten to sue?)
> > and what were the licensing terms they offered? From what you wrote,
> > they don't sound all that serious -- probably just wanted to see who
> > they could easily scare into licensing.
> >
> > My friend suggested that the best thing to do was to send them a letter
> > saying that you would investigate their claims, and get back to them
> > later. You could potentially ask for a claim chart with details on how
> > your product infringes on the patent. Since I'm sure all of us are very
> > busy people, it may be a bit of time until you can get back to them
> > about the issues.
> >
> > My friend also said he'd take a look at the patent and see if there
> > were any obvious holes, etc. However, it doesn't seem like these folks
> > are too agressive yet. If that changes, he suggested a number of
> > possible ways to move forward.
> >
> > Live from London,
> > - Aaron
>
>
>
>

Received on Friday, 4 January 2002 11:44:04 UTC