Archive
Category: Patents
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Microsoft Wins Appeal in Eolas Patent Case
This just in from Ars Technica: [A] Federal appeals court has overturned part of a lower court decision awarding Eolas US$521 million in damages for patent infringement by Microsoft. The case revolved around the use of browser add-ons such as plug-ins, ActiveX controls, and applets, which Eolas (a spinoff of the University of California) claimed… Read more →
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European Parliament to Reconsider Software Patents Directive
The European Parliament has unanimously backed a motion for the European Commission to review its proposal for a software patents directive, in accordance with decisions taken by the Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee on February 2 and the Conference of Presidents on February 17: ‘The Newspeak from the European Patent Office has failed to achieve its… Read more →
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Amazon Applies for Patent over Personal Search History
The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued details of a recent patent application made by Amazon.com, which describes a method for persistently storing and serving event data. Essentially, this allows their search engine, A9, to store and remember personal search histories. The original application was made in 2003, but withheld from publication until… Read more →
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Microsoft Applies for Latitude/Longitude Patent
The United States Patent Office on Friday released details of Microsoft’s latest patent application, this time for ‘[a] computer-implemented method of reducing the number of characters required to represent coordinates within a geographically-oriented string’. In other words: latitude and longitude coordinates. If granted, this invention will join a number of other notorious US patents, including:… Read more →
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European Parliament Scraps Software Patent Proposal
In a victory for free software advocates of the European Union, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) has decided to restart the software patent directive from scratch. Since its introduction in May 2004, the proposal has been heavily criticised as inviting abuse by patent holders and placing overly restrictive covenants upon open… Read more →
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Patent pools for open source DNA
An Australian organisation hopes to give scientists free access to the latest methods in biotechnology via the internet. The Biological Innovation for Open Society (‘BIOS’) will soon launch an open-source platform that promises to free up rights to patented DNA sequences and the methods needed to manipulate biological material. Users must only follow BIOS’ ‘rules… Read more →
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The $29.5 Million Haskell Question
Sitting in yet another laboratory class writing rather simple programs, my mouse wanders off in search of news. First up, from Slashdot, comes word of an interesting roundup of bluetooth headsets. I look forward to the day when I can buy a wireless mobile phone hands-free kit for the right side of $100. Perhaps more… Read more →
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Yahoo Settles Patent Dispute
Internet giant Yahoo has been the latest to defend a series of patent infringement cases filed by NCR, a United States based manufacturer of ATMs and holder of some 1500 patents. NCR’s 15 recent claims have been brought against key electronic commerce players, claiming infringement of several patents relating to methods of managing and processing… Read more →