From phm@a2e.de  Thu Jan 18 09:28:33 2001
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2001 10:28:33 +0100 (CET)
From: PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de
Subject: [Patents] Compaq plans to crack down on web searching

Starting from 2001, Compaq will assert Altavista's portfolio
of fundamental web searching patents to keep competitors out and earn
license fees.

Here you can see what is gradually going to happen, as companies start
looking for revenues and become aware their "Rembrandts in the attic".

--------

http://www.internetworld.com/011501/01.15.01interview.jsp

IW: Can we talk a bit about some of the ideas or opportunities that
you backed off of because money was an issue this past year?

Wetherell: [...]

Even though AltaVista s doing well in the advertising space, we just
think that in order to really ensure strong growth they ought to
leverage their position in search licensing to a greater extent. And
we saw the opportunity to do that because we think it s a big
market. They happen to own 38 patents, many of which we think are
fundamental in the search area. They were the first to spider and
index the Web. And Digital did a good job of recognizing the potential
value of that intellectual property. And they were very thorough in
filing broad and deep and narrow patents. And we have another 30
patents that are in application. So we believe that virtually everyone
out there who indexes the Web is in violation of at least several of
those key patents.

IW: Does that mean you ll pursue that?

Wetherell: Yes, we will. Coming up in the first quarter of 2001.

IW: So we may see some lawsuits ...

Wetherell: If necessary, we will defend it, to the letter of the law.

IW: Are there any specific examples of the types of patents?
                                                
Wetherell: If you index a distributed set of databases what the
Internet is and even within intranets, corporations, that s one of the
patents.  We did a press release on this with a list of six or ten of
the key areas that the patents cover.

-phm





