Re: UKNM: US Patents Office and e-commerece

[Ray Taylor]

Patents are designed to protect the rights of inventors. I would have

thought it unlikely that any company could restrict pure metaphors such as

online shopping carts and the like. Particularly since their use predates

the patent in question.


International trade agreements (including any single purchase) are normally

located within a jurisdiction or jurisdictions by agreement, so it would be

reasonable for a UK merchant to specify within standard terms that the

transaction is governed by English or Scottish Law. It's not foolproof but

it's a start.


And so I would agree with Marcus that there is nothing to worry about yet.

Some US companies are trying to protect intellectual property rights that

are already in the public domain, or belong privately to other parties, and

then scare everyone off by issuing press releases saying they own

everything.


A bit like registering hundreds of domain names and then trying to sell them

to the people who own the name offline.


-----Original Message-----

From: Marcus Austin <

marcus [dot] austinfuturenet [dot] co [dot] uk

>

To:

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

 <

uk-netmarketingchinwag [dot] com

>

Date: 15 September 1998 14:01

Subject: RE: UKNM: US Patents Office and e-commerece



>>"If you take information from remote instructions using an URL like a

>>channel, you're directly on top of our patent," says Dave Ladouceur, chief

>

>>applications as sending a phone bill over the Web so that users only need

>>to click the link to see the online version."

>

>This is such general description it's almost impossible to say

>anything, I wouldn't worry about it. Wait until you see the proper

>patent. What they describe also seems to imply that if you used an

>HTML link in any document then you would be infringing their patent.

>

>Marcus Austin

>Editor - Internet Works

>Tel 01225 442244 fax 01225 732295

>

>www.iwks.com