[8458] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Multimedia has been patented
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Barry Shein)
Fri Nov 19 18:05:37 1993
Date: Fri, 19 Nov 1993 18:04:43 -0500
From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein)
To: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Mark Boolootian's message of Fri, 19 Nov 1993 13:02:28 -0800 (PST) <9311192102.AA04726@framsparc.ocf.llnl.gov.ocf>
I've been following this a little. It's hard to believe what they seem
to be claiming their patent covers but everything I've seen keeps
pointing to "believe it".
I sincerely hope, if this is as it seems, that this causes Compton's
speedy demise as a business, and causes several people at the US
Patent Office to be fired on the spot.
This is government (almost) at its worst, irresponsibly assigning (and
intending to enforce) broad and destructive monopolies.
If this doesn't make the US patent system the laughingstock of the
world I can't imagine what would. It could be the beginning of the end
of any respect for the US patent system, both in the US and elsewhere.
>According to the company, anyone selling information in a multimedia
>format will need to pay license fees to Compton's no matter what the
>device used to distribute multimedia. Company officials say interactive
>television services like those announced by Time Warner and GTE,
>graphical on-line services such as America Online and Prodigy, and
>compact disc read-only memory (CD-ROM) title developers will all be
>obligated to pay or face legal action.
-Barry Shein
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