A bit like Glasgow buses you have to wait ages for my contributions
to the list but then along comes two in quick succession ;-).
Apropos the Google news this might be of interest too:
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/16180.html>:
>...the chairman and CEO of AltaVista's parent company, CMGI, David
>Wetherell ... said the company would be pursuing its search engine
>patents and we can expect lawsuits coming this quarter.
>
>Of course, the intended coup of the Internet search engine market
>comes in the form of some lovely management speak: "Even though
>AltaVista's doing well in the advertising space, we just think that
>in order to really ensure strong growth they ought to leverage their
>position in search licensing to a greater extent." ... "We believe
>that virtually everyone out there who indexes the Web is in
>violation of at least several of those key patents."
This certainly threatens to eclipse the furore that surrounded
Amazon's 'abuse' of patents! Better start looking for prior art...
--
Duncan Smeed Computer Science Department
mailto:[log in to unmask] University of Strathclyde
http://www.cs.strath.ac.uk/~duncan 26 Richmond Street, Glasgow
tel: +44 (0) 141 548 3587 G1 1XH, Scotland, UK
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