[Sigia-l] SBC has patented ICON-based navigation

[Louise Ferguson]

At 14:53 23/01/2003 -0600, Smith, Denise (Hewitt) wrote:
>Unfortunately, the way the patent is written is vague enough to cause
>concern... this is an excerpt from an analysis:
>
>"The letter suggests that any website which has static, linked information
>(top banners, menus, bottom banners) which are displayed while other
>sections of the page are displayed as non-static (the area where products
>appear on most websites) infringes upon the patents they hold."


There appears to be some kind of general problem with the US patent system. 
BT never managed to successfully file a UK patent - ie in its own country - 
for the hyperlink, but it did in the US.

There are different but parallel issues regarding software copyrighting, 
where US software house campaigning has sought to influence European 
governments to implement wide-ranging protection of code. The European 
argument is that this inhibits creativity - what is really new under the 
sun? Everybody recycles, including anybody who calls themselves a 
'creative', and how can we have 'pattern recognition' without patterns? 
There was a fair amount of backlash to this coming out of UK universities 
around a year ago, but I think the software houses have finally won the day.

Louise Feguson