Re: [Fsfe-uk] Bromcom undead ?

[Ian Lynch]

On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 20:32, Alex Hudson wrote:
> On Wed, 2004-11-24 at 20:29 +0000, Ian Lynch wrote:
> > My understanding was that the bit that was upheld was some specific and
> > fairly obscure protocols that were implemented in the original systems.
> > This means that general purpose wireless networking was OK, but you
> > couldn't use the specific protocils BromCom "invented". Not much of a
> > problem since I know of no-one who needs to use these.
> 
> Well, see, there's the thing - I'm pretty sure what the DTI guidance
> used to say was exactly that. But then, El Rag's link into Hansard
> showed Fungus the Bogeyman going back on that slightly, and saying that
> schools should consult their supplier to see whether or not what they
> are doing is "legal". 
> 
> > Quite so. Any fair minded person would see that transferring
> > registration data over wireless when it was previously done over cable
> > is no different from any data that was on cable then being transferred
> > over wireless so what is unusual or inventive about it?
> 
> I don't think it's necessarily inventive, but it might be technical 

I thought patents had to be non-obvious. I would have thought that going
from a cable connection to a wireless connection is obvious in the
extreme.

> - so
> a registration system as a whole might be patentable, with the wireless
> bit forming a technical contribution.
> 
> I don't know. It sounds like the DTI are trying to get the patent as
> narrow as possible, Bromcom are trying to ensure it still covers
> schools. It sounds like little has actually been decided at the moment
> (other than that the patent cannot stand as it was originally worded - a
> win, but not as substantial a win as we thought).

I gave evidence and while I was there, there was no credible evidence
given in two days in support of the patent. If this results in an
impasse it really is evidence of how broken the patent system is. 

-- 
Ian Lynch <address@hidden>
ZMS Ltd