.NET API patent was rejected (non-final) [LWN.net]

.NET API patent was rejected (non-final)

Posted Jan 11, 2006 6:42 UTC (Wed) by mitchskin (subscriber, #32405)
Parent article: Mono added to Fedora Core

The main objection to mono has always been patents. Many patents can be worked around, but since a big part of the reason for mono was a compatible reimplementation of the .NET API, a patent on that API would have enabled Microsoft to kill mono, or at least drastically reduce its scope.

Interestingly, the patent application was given a non-final rejection last October. Presumably that means that Microsoft can try to fix the things that the patent examiner didn't like about it, but the fact that they haven't responded so far may indicate that the problems are too big. Reading through the rejection letter, it looks like there are substantial prior art issues.

You can read the history of the patent application (click on "image file wrapper"--the rejection letter is near the top of that list)

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.NET API patent was rejected (non-final)

Posted Jan 11, 2006 6:52 UTC (Wed) by mitchskin (subscriber, #32405) [Link]

Looking through the stuff at that link, I thought the "examiner's search strategy and results" was really interesting. It contains the record of how the examiner went about searching for prior art in the USPTO's database.

The query language reminds me of old-school web querying ("common near language with (api or application near interface)")

Broken link

Posted Jan 11, 2006 19:02 UTC (Wed) by Blaisorblade (guest, #25465) [Link]

I can't find anything useful at that link - they seem to have changed URLs.

Broken link

Posted Jan 11, 2006 23:13 UTC (Wed) by mitchskin (subscriber, #32405) [Link]

hmmm, I thought that was the actual page but maybe it was just a search result.

If you go to http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair , select "Application Number" in the dropdown, and enter 10/087027 it should get you there.