RE: [syndication] do patents threaten syndication?

["Alis Marsden" <alis@contentrelations.com>]

I've spoken with OOiptech myself on a couple of occasions and I've always
found them very nice.

I looked at what they were doing six months ago. As it was very java based
at that time I sat down with a colleague who is a Java developer and tried
to work out what was so unique about their products that it warranted a
patent - couldn't find anything.

Alis Marsden


-----Original Message-----
From: Dave Winer [mailto:dave@userland.com]
Sent: 07 June 2001 16:35
To: syndication@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [syndication] do patents threaten syndication?


Welcome to life in high tech in 2001. Everyone must find an answer for him
or herself on this. My plan is to keep pushing forward and expecting that at
some point someone is going to try to stop it. But by working openly and not
locking anyone in to my software, even if I go down, the concepts will be
out there.

BTW, I checked with Adam Curry on these guys (they're in Amsterdam and he is
too) and he knows them, and likes them and has been trying to get them to
use RSS, but so far no luck.

Dave


----- Original Message -----
From: <dave.cantrell@gunter.af.mil>
To: <syndication@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2001 7:40 AM
Subject: [syndication] do patents threaten syndication?


> Just read a link from Dave Winer's Scripting News updates (I think that's
> where I got it) about a company called OOiPTech[1] that has filed a patent
> for syndication and aggregation techniques using XML.
>
> To be honest, I really don't see how they can really expect to receive a
> patent for something that has been used online in numerous formats since
> scriptingNews in 1997. (and perhaps before that, with ICE and others? not
> sure...)
>
> Add to that the threat it would pose to companies like Moreover, and it
> seems this could be dead-on-arrival.
>
> Of course, prior art hasn't stopped the US Patent office before. One
company
> (can't remember the name) just received a patent for WYSIWYG HTML editors
> and plans to pursue Microsoft and Macromedia first. And I'm sure everyone
is
> familiar with the (apparently failed) patent awarded for "e-commerce"...
>
> From the looks of OOiPTech, I don't see anything particularly innovative
> here. Their syndication system appears to be standard XML syndication, and
> their aggregator tool looks like it can't scale -- from the way they write
> their literature it sounds like every time you connect it retrieves all
> information live from other sites. If that's the case is it really an
> aggregator?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -dave
>
> [1] http://www.ooiptech.com/index.pl?page=syndication.htm
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>




Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/