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Barracuda turns to open source users for patent research (LinuxWorld)
LinuxWorld takes a
look at Barracuda Networks, and its patent concerns. "Barracuda
Networks CEO Dean Drako says his company won't license a virus scanning
patent from Trend Micro, and he's going to users to help build Barracuda's
case file of prior art—previous software products and documentation that
could help invalidate the patent in court. Barracuda is launching a new
section of its web site, "Legal Defense of Free and Open Source Software",
to document the patent case and the company's prior art research."
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Barracuda turns to open source users for patent research (LinuxWorld) Posted Jan 30, 2008 9:58 UTC (Wed) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] This has great potential to blow up in the face of Trend Micro. Explaining to politicians about patents blocking standards is one thing, but when you can tell them that patents are now taking anti-virus and anti-spam software off the market, they'll understand.
Barracuda turns to open source users for patent research (LinuxWorld) Posted Jan 30, 2008 14:47 UTC (Wed) by zotz (guest, #26117) [Link] "prior art" I don't get it in this case. You can run more than one daemon on one server. Wow. Look how novel this is! I can run daemon A in conjunction with daemon Q on this box! that combo has never been run together before! No one else would have thought of itbut I did. Bow down to my mighty inventive powers! Please. Or what am I missing? all the best, drew
"obviousness" in US patent law Posted Jan 30, 2008 20:32 UTC (Wed) by dmarti (subscriber, #11625) [Link] You're missing the state of "obviousness" in US patent law, prior to KSR v. Teleflex. In that case, the lower court held that even though there was prior art for an adjustable pedal, and prior art for a pedal with a sensor placed in a certain way, the patent on the combination was valid. So you could have prior art for a virus scanner, and prior art for a mail proxy that runs email through some kind of external scanning program, but the combination would be non-obvious and patentable(!) The story has some good comments from Eben Moglen on KSR v. Teleflex which could relate to the "obviousness" of Trend Micro's patent, plus a quote and link to the Supreme Court opinion.
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