On Feb 3, 2006, at 6:57 PM, Curt Sampson wrote:
> However, ColorCode looks like it might well infringe the patent, since
> it does use this lookup system. On the other hand, ColorCode has
> certainly been around for far longer than eighteen months, which is
> how
> long ago this patent was filed.
The US Patent Office is insanely promiscuous ... they'll give a
patent to anyone.
But, ColorCode doesn't need to precede the patent directly. "Prior
art" from any source, ColorCode or otherwise, will invalidate the
patent. In theory anyway. In practice getting the USPTO to invalidate
a patent is ridiculously hard & expensive because once they issue the
patent, the courts "assume" that its valid. (cf, the RIM BlackBerry
saga...)
The US patent system is basically broken.
--simon
PS I blogged about patents : http://semacode.org/weblog/2005/07/06
--
Simon Woodside - Founder
Semacode Corporation
http://semacode.com
Received on Sat Feb 4 23:18:58 2006