!061594 Wang suing Microsoft? and comments from PTO commissioner Well, even I miss a few stories. But it seems that Wang is suing Microsoft over some software patents. The May/June 1994 issue of Mass High Tech had a cover page story on a talk given by Robert Cringely, Infoworld's gossip columnist. At one point in his talk, he comments on Wang Laboraties having success in its lawsuit against Microsoft for infringing Wang's patents on OLE: "It seems to me like Wang has a very good shot there. It's not as intrinsic a part of their business as the disk compression is to Stac, so they will have a hard time convincing the judge that billions and billions are required. But certainly there is a good revenue stream that will probably come from that. It's probably a better idea for Microsoft to buy Wang, take the patents, and spit out the rest". If anyone has more information on this case, please let me know. ============================================================================= The June 13 edition of Electronic Engineering Times has an article on Clinton administration activities involving global intellectual property laws. Part of the article includes some comments from PTO Commissioner Lehman. Bruce Lehman, commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, said increased litigation was seriously eroding intellectual property protections in U.S. patent law. "We want to give people a patent they can take to the bank rather than the courthouse", Lehman said. Conflicting interpretations of patent law by different federal judges is creating more gray areas in the law "that attract more lawyers than venture capitalists", the Commerce official said. The resulting uncertainty is having a chilling effect on innovation, Lehman said. Along with working more closely with the Department of Justice on patent issues, the PTO is adding computer scientists to its corps of patent examiners while reviewing criteria for examining patent applications. It also is drafting new performance guidelines for patent examiners. "We need to do some fine-tuning of the system ... so people can get on with the job of innovation and competition", said Lehman. ......... Lehman said the Clinton administration has set aside attempts by the Bush administration to harmonize international patent law, explaining that policy makers have decided against sweeping changes in US law until the United States wins reciprocity on patent protection from its major trading partners. ============================================================================= Unfortunately, as responsive as the PTO is becoming in dealing with the domains of two of its supergroups, biotech and computing, inventors are pushing against patent law boundaries much faster. Prior art, obviousness and novelty mechanisms - wait until they run head-first into technologies such as cache logic (which totally blurs hardware and software), or protein-based optical computing (which blurs biotech, chemistry, hardware, software and optics). For the time being, things can only get better for patent lawyers :-) Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service Guenter Steinbach x123