Patents etc

[Jay Campbell]

>IMHO What's needed is a) a good way of measuring usage and b) a realistic
>attitude on the part of patent holders as to the value of their patents. 
>
>A good example of how not to do it is the current mess that governs the
>music indistry (which very similar problems with copying and incorporation
>of material [sampling] all be it in a context of copyright rather than
>patents). 
>
>Ted Nelson did a lot of work on this for xanadu and his ideas on 
>transcopyright are worth exploring further.

One interesting (but maybe off-topic) facet of client-side applets (a la
Java) is the fact that publishers can define proprietary protocols and file
formats, and change them as often as they want, giving a sort of minimal
protection against casual duplication and re-publishing. With a bit more
work, the formats could make true transclusions efficient and easy to apply,
and help increase the amount of serious/commercial information available to
the public.

This is nothing new, I suppose... Java (from a user point of view) isn't
that much different than IntelligentPad, which from what I understand was
the client system the Xanadu people were working with recently.
--
   Jay Campbell - Regional Operations Manager
   -=-=-=-=-=-=-  Sense Networking (Santa Cruz Node) 
   edge at got.net   "Shoot the Fruit Loop"            
 
"On the Information Superhighway, I'm the guy 
  behind you in this morning's traffic jam leaning on his horn."