[Patents] EPO-Patent on GUI-based network configuration

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> > EP0490624
> > Graphical configuration of data processing networks
> > IBM (US)
> 
> Hartmut,
>       You might want to consider posting the priority data of the
> filing of the patent application as well.  

Right.
We need to put those dates into our database.

>       That said, I can't believe the we-now-love-open-source-IBM
> actually now loves open source, given the continual acquisition of
> such silly patents.  IBM gets these patents, not for defensive reasons
> like their guy said at the French conference, but for offensive
> reasons to maintain their billion-dollar/year+ patent licensing
> royalties. Their support for Open Source is mostly to help them
> undermine Microsoft in the marketplace.

Right.
IBM is an apparatus, to which I would never attribute a love to anything
or an affection for any value system.  Yet I do find it plausible that IBM
is increasingly finding itself targeted by companies like TechSearch,
Qualcomm, Priceline etc.  A telecommunications manager at Siemens told me
recently that they would love to be able to get rid of software patents
because of this increasingly adverse situation.  The IBM guys didn't say
it as clearly as that in London, but they did complain about business
method patents and also asserted that there is no basic difference between
bizmet and software.

-phm