From sf@fermigier.com Tue, 29 Feb 2000 10:57:00 +0100
Date: Tue, 29 Feb 2000 10:57:00 +0100
From: Stefane Fermigier sf@fermigier.com
Subject: [Patents] Tim O'Reilly on Amazon.

http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/amazon_patent.html

``In the first place, this patent should have never been allowed. It's
a completely trivial application of cookies, a technology that was
introduced several years before Amazon filed for their patent. It's
even more ironic that in private conversation, one of the authors of
the "cookies" spec mentioned to me that they considered the idea "too
trivial to patent." To characterize "1-Click" as an ""invention" is a
parody. Like so many software patents, it is a land grab, an attempt to
hoodwink a patent system that has not gotten up to speed on the state
of the art in computer science. I'm not completely opposed to software
patents, since there are some things that do in fact qualify as legitimate
"inventions", but when I see people patenting obvious ideas, ideas that
are already in wide use, it makes my blood boil.

I also want to say that a patent on something like "1-Click ordering"
is a slap in the face of Tim Berners-Lee and all of the other pioneers
who created the opportunity that Amazon has done such a good job of
exploiting. Amazon wouldn't have existed without the generosity of
people like Tim, who made legitimate, far-reaching inventions, and put
them out into the public domain for all to build upon. Anyone who puts
a small gloss on this fundamental technology, calls it proprietary, and
then tries to keep others from building further on it, is a thief. The
gift was given to all of us, and anyone who tries to make it their own
is stealing our patrimony.''


-- 
Stfane Fermigier, Tel: 06 63 04 12 77 (mobile).
<www.portalux.com>: le portail Linux / logiciel libre.




