Continuing fun with software patents
Posted Feb 28, 2003 14:45 UTC (Fri) by
eru (subscriber, #2753)
Parent article:
Continuing fun with software patents
If the "Interwoven patent" can be interpreted to cover all revision
control systems, it meants that the UPSTO cannot even look at earlier
granted patents for prior art! There are software patents on version control,
such as the multiversion file system patents by the ClearCase implementers.
A ClearCase manual I have at hand lists U.S. Patents 5,574,898, 5,649,200
and 5,675,802, then ominously adds "Additional patents pending".
I read on some web forum or other that these patents effectively prevent
making a legal ClearCase clone for Linux. (Which is probably a good thing,
because IMHO the whole concept is ill-conceived. ClearCase is confusing for
users, and architecturally, file systems should just store bits, not implement
such complex functionality as revision control with branches, tags and all that).
(
Log in to post comments)
