[Mapserver-users] multimap.com patent

[Ed McNierney]

William -

I would not rely at all on reading patent abstracts to determine whether
or not a particular activity is infringing.  You don't infringe on the
abstract, you infringe on the claims.  It's also (on the other side of
the coin) very easy to read an abstract and say "oh, baloney - lots of
other inventions do that" because the language is so broad.  Once you
carefully parse the claims, you may find that what you thought was
non-infringing really does infringe, and vice-versa.

I am still not a lawyer.

	- Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
Phone: (978) 251-4242  Fax: (978) 251-1396
ed at topozone.com


-----Original Message-----
From: William Miles [mailto:thabo at tdcspace.dk] 
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 5:28 PM
To: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
Subject: Re: [Mapserver-users] multimap.com patent

Thanks for the replies.

Their US patent abstract description state the following:

"A map of the area of a client computer is requested from a map server.
Information relating to a place of interest is requested from an
information server by the client computer. The information is
superimposed or overlaid on a map image at a position on the map image
corresponding to the location of the place of interest on the map. The
information (or "overlay") server may contain details of, for example,
hotels, restaurants, shops or the like, associated with the geographical
coordinates of each location. The map server contains map data,
including coordinate data representing the spatial coordinates of at
least one point on the area represented by the map."

The complete patent description can be found at
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL
&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%276240360%27.WKU.&OS=PN/62
40360&RS=PN/6240360

Like Dave wrote, there are many companies in both Europe and the US that
are providing such services.

William


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