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Hi Guys,<br><br>
as a software company what is the best way to protect against potential
patent suits. <br><br>
Can one setup a sacrificial company and do a phoenix in another entity if
one gets slapped with a stupid suit?<br><br>
Can one buy insurance; if so where from??<br><br>
thanks<br><br>
Simon<br><br>
At 08:17 PM 10/09/2003 -0400, you wrote:<br><br>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite><font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">Frank
et al. <br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">It is dangerous to speculate
without good legal advice and specific precedents. Having been a
CTO for several companies and involved in several IP issues (as a techie,
not a lawyer), I will say that outside of patent protection the way most
companies protect their intellectual property is through copyright and
trade secrets. If the secret is disclosed, SOMEONE made a
boo-boo.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">I ve never bothered with the
format, but your BSB page describes a patented algorithm that has been
reverse engineered . It s usually not necessary to reverse-engineer
a patented process, because the patent itself explains it. But if
it s patented, you can t use it without a license from the patent holder
as in the Unisys LZW patent, for example. Everyone knows how to
implement it, but you need a license to do so legally.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">EFF might be a good start, but
a good legal opinion from someone is needed here. Applying similar
cases is often very unhelpful and misleading the EXACT nature of the
copyrighted materials, the specific claims (all of them) in the patent,
etc. are all relevant to whether MapTech s claim has merit. That s
very hard for a non-professional to determine, although it s VERY easy
for a non-professional to engage in exuberant speculation
<g>.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">-</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=1 color="#000080">
</font><font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">Ed<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">Ed McNierney<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">President and Chief
Mapmaker<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte,
Inc.<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">73 Princeton Street, Suite
305<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">North Chelmsford, MA
01863<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">Phone: (978) 251-4242
Fax: (978) 251-1396<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080">ed@topozone.com<br>
</font><br>
<font face="arial" size=2 color="#000080"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="tahoma" size=2>-----Original Message-----<br>
<b>From:</b> Jack Varga
[<a href="mailto:jvarga@boulder.net" eudora="autourl">mailto:jvarga@boulder.net</a>]
<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, September 10, 2003 7:38 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> gdal-dev@remotesensing.org<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Gdal-dev] MapTech / BSB Legal Issues<br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times"> <br>
</font><br>
<font face="Times New Roman, Times">EFF is the place to pose this
excellent question. My belief is their request is without
merit. A friend and 3rd year law student specializing in IP concurs
but is digging further. Curious though, was it truly a
"request" or an order for cease and desist? If it was the
former, chances are their attorney's have already told them to ask nicely
as there was not much recourse otherwise. <br><br>
I would simply take your original mail (include a reference to
<a href="http://www.maptech.com">http://www.maptech.com</a>) and forward
to one of the following...<br><br>
Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney<br>
<a href="mailto:fred@eff.org?SUBJECT=">fred@eff.org</a><br><br>
Wendy Seltzer, EFF Staff Attorney (Fair Use & Intellectual
Property)<br>
<a href="mailto:wendy@eff.org">wendy@eff.org</a><br><br>
Jason M. Schultz, EFF Staff Attorney (Intellectual Property / reverse
engineering)<br>
<a href="mailto:jason@eff.org">jason@eff.org</a><br><br>
...or...<br><br>
<a href="mailto:ask@eff.org">ask@eff.org</a><br><br>
...to let them decide who to forward it to.<br><br>
The entire staff's bio's are at
<a href="http://www.eff.org/contact/staff_bios.php">http://www.eff.org/contact/staff_bios.php</a><br><br>
Relatedly, one of the counties here sells certain data (parcels and
address enhanced street center lines) for $.50 (US) per arc, exported to
shapefile. They say that purchasers are constrained legally to
"not" make the data available to other parties, including web
applications. However, the information contained within those
shapefiles (i.e., coordinate info) is essentially public domain. You
can't copyright coordinate info, so how do the likes of GDT, NavTech,
etc., keep their data proprietary and protected, yet useful?
<br><br>
Has anyone run across similar scenarios?<br><br>
-jv<br><br>
Frank Warmerdam wrote:<br><br>
GDAL Users, <br><br>
I have been contacted by Maptech and I have been requested to remove the
<br>
web page where I talk about the BSB file format, and provide source code
for <br>
reading it. <br><br>
<a href="http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/bsb/">http://gdal.velocet.ca/projects/bsb/</a>
<br><br>
They seem to be claiming that the BSB file format is copyrighted by them, <br>
though it wasn't my understanding that a file format could be copyrighted. <br>
I am not prepared to comply with their request until they can provide some <br>
sort of supporting information indicating they truely have "ownership" of <br>
the file format and that it is illegal for applications to support reading <br>
that file format for the purposes of interoperability. <br><br>
Maptech has not requested that anyone stop using the code I distribute; <br>
however, any firms interested in minimizing any possible downstream legal <br>
concerns may want to proactively drop use of the BSB driver from their <br>
GDAL builds. <br><br>
To that end, I have added a "--without-bsb" configure option on Unix. Just <br>
add this option when configuring GDAL and no BSB related code will be <br>
included in your builds. On Windows I added a line to the nmake.opt <br>
file related to BSB support. If the nmake.opt file does not declare <br>
the BSB_SUPPORTED macro then BSB support and source code will be omitted <br>
from the build. The changes went in this afternoon and should appear <br>
in tonights nightly snapshot. <br><br>
For those who are not aware, the BSB format is a compressed raster format <br>
used for distributing government nautical charts from a number of countries <br>
including Canada and the USA. <br><br>
While for me the BSB format is if no great importance, it is important to <br>
me to be able to write my own code to read file formats. For that reason <br>
I don't want to immediately cave in till I get some more information on <br>
whether their claims have any validity. <br><br>
I am interested in any pointers folks can provide on precidents related <br>
to copyrighting file formats, or suggestions of an inexpensive <br>
intellectual property attorney. Even a student lawyer would help! I <br>
don't want to break the law, but I don't want to be give up if I am not. <br><br>
Best regards, </font></blockquote>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<br>
cheers<br><br>
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br>
Dr. Simon Ronald - Senior Software Consultant- Petrosys Pty. Ltd. <br>
simon@petrosys.com.au<br>
Tel +61 8 8333 9467 Fax. +61 8 8431 8010 <br>
69 Fullarton Rd., Kent Town, SA 5067, Australia <br><br>
<font size=2 color="#C0C0C0"><i>Microsoft and Security? The guillotine was not designed with safety in mind.</font></i></html>