Re: Microsoft in sofware patent trouble...

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

> http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/53/29419.html

The Timeline statement is very well written.  Microsoft needs to be
punished for its deceptive strongarm tactics, but also Timeline
doesn't deserve to receive any payments either.

You can find the EPO version of Timeline's broad claims at

        http://swpat.ffii.org/patents/txt/ep/0954/777/

It is an A1 version, i.e. not yet granted here.

If you have a US patent number and want to find a corresponding
EP number, one place to look is the German Patent Office's database
at

        http://www.depatisnet.de/

Unfortunately they offer patent descriptions only as page per page chunks
of graphic files, and they even explicitely warn that if you use any
scripts to automatically download and concatenate those files, you are in
violation of their database licensing terms and they will block your
access.  A strange threat in view of the patent office's supposed mission
of disseminating technical information.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance             tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation     http://swpat.ffii.org/
135,000 signatures against software patents    http://www.noepatents.org/