[IxDA Discuss] Apple's Gesture Dictionary

[W Evans]

I'm a bit confused, or could you amplify your last email.

Are you saying that there are potential legal problems re: discussing
publicly available information about patents?

Are there legal issues with excerpting a patent which is published in the
public domain?

Are their legal issues with linking to patent applications?


For instance. if I want to discuss a patent or patent application (say some
usability guru tried to patent inline commenting in social network blogs),
can I not discuss it? If it is published on the USPTO website, can I not
take an excerpt from it? Can I not link to the patent, as well as the
usability guru's website to discuss the patent absurdity of the claim? (pun
intended).

I am looking for a little clarity as to what people are and are not allowed
to discuss about information in the public domain, and what, exactly, are
the potential legal problems of such a discussion.

I think these conversations are good, so I might just ask my friend (IP
lawyer) if there are any issues we should be concerned about before we
volunteer a gag-rule on the topic.

~ will





On 8/6/07, Andrei Herasimchuk <andrei at involutionstudios.com> wrote:
>
> Point of process.
>
> Can we be *VERY* careful posting and discussing patent issues in this
> open forum? I remember getting into some serious gray areas back in
> my days at Adobe that are legally not a good place to be in, and I'd
> hate to have people on this list compromised unintentionally by
> anyone involved.
>
> What this means:
>
> * Please do not post links to patents.
> * Please do not excerpt patents.
> * Please refrain from discussing patents except in theory. In other
> words, do not discuss details of patents in the open on the list.
>
> I know I'm going to sound like a buzz kill here, but having dealt
> with this in the corporate world, it really is serious business
> whether my Libertarian brain likes it or not. Please be aware that
> you may be putting others into a compromising situation by discussing
> this on this list. To the degree that some people would have to drop
> from it if their legal teams find out you guys are discussing it
> openly like this.
>
> --
> Andrei Herasimchuk
>
> Principal, Involution Studios
> innovating the digital world
>
> e. andrei at involutionstudios.com
> c. +1 408 306 6422
>
>
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