[IP] To patent or not to patent a "business method"

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

> Date: Sat, 26 Jul 2003 09:15:31 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <jhall@astron.berkeley.edu>
> Subject: To patent or not to patent a "business method"
> X-X-Sender: jhall@irk
> To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
>
>
>
> http://www.washtimes.com/business/20030725-101707-9540r.htm
>
> Internet patents divide industry
>
> By Justin Pope
> ASSOCIATED PRESS
>
> BOSTON Tim O'Reilly's company had a new and potentially lucrative idea
> in the early 1990s: Use advertising revenue to run a Web portal.
> Essentially, he says, Global Network Navigator invented the Internet
> banner ad.
>
> According to a landmark court decision handed down five years ago this
> month, Mr. O'Reilly may have been able to patent the idea as a
> "business method"  a move that could have changed the course of
> Internet history.
>
> But even if he could have, he says he wouldn't have.
>
> "If I had been able to put a patent on that and collect from everybody
> else who did it, that would have held back the industry tremendously,"
> said Mr. O'Reilly, who after the sale of GNN to America Online, now
> heads O'Reilly Associates, a technology publishing company. He is a
> critic of broad patent protections.
>
> [...]
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> Joseph Lorenzo Hall
> Graduate Student                        http://pobox.com/~joehall

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