!061294 Novell petitions Patent Office to reexamine Billings' patent Novell has petitioned the Patent and Trademark Office to reexamine Roger Billings' patent for server-based distributed computer networks. For the past few years, Billings' has been suing Novell for $220 million, claiming that Novell's NetWare infringes his patent. Billings has been successful in not having his case thrown out of court, which many familiar with hardware and software prior art for networking would have thought given the gradual evolution of networking ideas and their share in the academic and government facilities. Novell has provided the PTO with 13 examples of prior art that allegedly invalidates Billing's patent (which I find surprising, since my estimates are that for anything significant in the software / hardware world, there are at least 22 examples of prior art if you search exhaustively enough). The courts have scheduled a trial for Billing's charges this September(the past few years have been tied up with preliminary motions and other tasks). It will be interesting to see if the Patent Office makes a decision on the reexamination before the trial starts. Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service