Re: [d@DCC] Federal Identity Program violates patents?

From: Kristofer Coward <kris _-at-_ melon.org>
To: General Discussion <discuss (at) digital-copyright.ca>
Cc: CANadian OPENsource Education and Research <discuss -_at_- canopener.ca>, GOSLING Ottawa <ottawa-gosling -_at_- flora.org>
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 2003 19:35:43 -0500
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0301201200160.14801-100000@calcutta1.flora.ca>

On Mon, Jan 20, 2003 at 12:15:14PM -0500, Russell McOrmond wrote:
> 
> 
>   In what could be a very amusing situation, the Government of Canada may
> be violating "yet another questionable patent" with their Federal Identity
> Program (FIP).  FIP, in conjunction with the Common Look and Feel (CLF),
> define what government of Canada sites are intended to look like, and how
> they are to navigate.
> 
> 
>   In the FIPS "Sample Layout Grids", they demonstrate a layout showing
> buttons on a left column that are intended to be kept for every page:
>   http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/si-si/fip-pcim/7.1/51_e.html#3
> 
> 
>   While I don't believe this patent has any merit (along with most 
> patents, and especially any business model or software patents), this type 
> of layout appears to be covered under "US Patent no. 5,933,841 entitled 
> ``Stuctured Document Browser''".
> 
> 
>   Maybe it will be the FIPS folks that will finally talk to the
> Intellectual Property Policy Directorate
> <http://strategis.ic.gc.ca/SSG/ip00001e.html> to get them to clarify
> patentability such that this type of patent nonsense will not apply to
> Canada.

Of course, if they dont' seem up to doing it on their own, perhaps it
might be an idea to buy/exclusively-license/whetever any rights for
Canadian use of the patent, and then sue them for a little
encouragement :) (due to a serious lack of legal background on my
point, the operative words here are unquestionably "perhaps" and
"might")

-- 
Kristofer Coward				http://unripe.melon.org/
GPG Fingerprint: 2BF3 957D 310A FEEC 4733  830E 21A4 05C7 1FEB 12B3
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