to talk with the guys from the us patent and trademark office: after 1-click e-commerce they gave jeff bezos, founder and ceo of amazon.com, the exclusive right for a 'method and system for conducting a discussion relating to an item. filed 1999. if and how it threatens ¿e-mail discussion groups? or 'any other web-based, bulletin-board type discussions about items offered for sale or items being sought after for purchase' (internetnews) needs still to be watched, but the question is out there. i am faszinated. someone has to give them a roasting, i guess.

'If peanut butter sandwiches were in the public domain and jelly sandwiches were in the public domain, you could still patent peanut butter and jelly sandwiches if you're the first person to make one' (e. kahn on us patent law)

interesting draft on patents and open standards. including a collection of materials on ibm´s patent claim on e(lectronic) b(usiness)XML, but also older cases.

there is a quote from simon phipps about the case. he should know what he is talking about and propably a little bit more: some years ago he was chief xml evangelist" by ibm. nowadays he is working by sun and talking about phipps law (proprietary solutions are costly, shared standards make the value grow faster than the costs.)

"Simon Phipps, chief technology evangelist at Sun Microsystems Inc., called the move 'the renaissance of the old IBM.' He said actions like this 'raise questions about the entire standards process.' Phipps argued that companies like IBM with large patent portfolios could hijack anything claiming to be an open standard by waiting for adoption and then asserting their rights. 'It lets you have a degree of control over your competitors and how they compete with you,' he said..."

in general

"Business leaders have an opportunity and obligation to think beyond the Dogma of Pure Materialism which some appear to accept as an unqualified moral charge: "to maximize corporate profits and shareholder dividends without regard for the long-term concerns of humanity worldwide." One need not be a socialist or communist to recognize that a form of Capitalist Religion which deifies corporate profit and ignores long-term consequences for society is a bankrupt religion as well as a morally deficient personal agenda."

conclusio: "der rest der industrie lebt damit schon seit jahrhunderten" (helmut sonn, patentanwalt)