Subject: [TS] Re: Patent issed for The Brain
From: Stephen Danic (sdanic@home.com)
Date: Sat Mar 11 2000 - 04:01:48 EST
I don't know much about the patents either, but it shouldn't be hard to drum
up prior art. HTML comes to mind. As do mindmaps, databases, toolbars, etc.
Their patents are pretty broad.
What exactly has to be done to bring prior art to into consideration? Can it
be done without expensive lawyers?
...Steve
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ben Darnell" <bgdarnel@unity.ncsu.edu>
To: <thoughtstream@egroups.com>
Sent: Friday, March 10, 2000 8:27 PM
Subject: [TS] Re: Patent issed for The Brain
> On Fri, Mar 10, 2000 at 07:49:00PM -0800, Michael Simcich wrote:
> > I know this was mentioned here a while ago, but apparently it's now
> > official. The Brain (www.thebrain.com) by Natrificial has a patent
> > approved for their brain technology that "allows any piece of
> > information to be linked and accessed from multiple locations within
> > the interface - giving users the ability to retrieve and navigate data
> > by association".
> >
>
> Actually, it's worse than that. Searching for "Natrificial" at
> www.patents.ibm.com turns up 4 hits. Their first US patent was just
> issued, but there are several international patents (or are those just
> applications?). I have read the first international patent, but not the
> rest (I didn't know about them until I did this search). It is my
> opinion that all common aspects shared by ThoughtStream and the Brain do
> not meet the patent criteria of non-obviousness and novelty. If there
> are any lawyerly types out there who can help me interpret these
> patents, I would definitely appreciate the help. (is Nate still here?)
>
> > I use the Brain, I like it a lot. I really, really, don't want
> > Natrificial to own a patent that will ultimately prevent similiar
> > dynamic linking interfaces from being developed. If that's what the
> > patent is going to amount to it has the potential to impact the
> > development of computer interfaces in a very negative way, far
> > exceeding the damages that might be caused by the types of ecommerce
> > related patents that Amazon has been awarded (which are also a real
> > bummer).
>
> I agree. It seems to me that by sponsoring Minciu Sodas's effort to
> create an import/export standard, Natrificial is effectively encouraging
> the development of similar programs. (unless they're planning to wait
> for a standard to get established and then start enforcing their
> patents, like Unisys did).
>
> -Ben
> --
> Ben Darnell bgdarnel@unity.ncsu.edu
> http://thoughtstream.org
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>
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