www/philosophy software-patents.html

[Therese Godefroy]

CVSROOT:        /webcvs/www
Module name:    www
Changes by:     Therese Godefroy <th_g> 19/03/17 06:16:48

Modified files:
        philosophy     : software-patents.html 

Log message:
        Revive old links.

CVSWeb URLs:
http://web.cvs.savannah.gnu.org/viewcvs/www/philosophy/software-patents.html?cvsroot=www&r1=1.40&r2=1.41

Patches:
Index: software-patents.html
===================================================================
RCS file: /webcvs/www/www/philosophy/software-patents.html,v
retrieving revision 1.40
retrieving revision 1.41
diff -u -b -r1.40 -r1.41
--- software-patents.html       9 Mar 2019 16:56:26 -0000       1.40
+++ software-patents.html       17 Mar 2019 10:16:47 -0000      1.41
@@ -170,10 +170,8 @@
 <span class="gnun-split"></span>This is not just academic.
 In 1984, the compress program was written, a program for data
 compression.  At the time, there was no patent on the LZW compression
-algorithm which it used.  Then in 1985, the US issued a patent on this
-<!-- This link is dead and there is nothing on their site related to
-     the patent or LZW at all, AFAICS.         yavor, 18 Jul 2008
-<a href="http://www.unisys.com/unisys/lzw/default.asp";>patent</a> -->
+algorithm which it used.  Then in 1985, the US issued a <a
+href="https://patents.justia.com/patent/4558302";>patent</a> on this
 algorithm and over the next few years, those who distributed the
 compress program started getting threats.  There was no way that the
 author of compress could have realized that he was likely to get sued.
@@ -242,9 +240,7 @@
 This is not just theoretical.  Around 1990, a programmer named
 <a href="http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv2n3/hypercard.html";>Paul
 Heckel</a> sued Apple claiming that Hypercard infringed a couple of
-his patents.
-<!-- Link apparently not useful anymore.
-<a 
href="http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&amp;Sect2=HITOFF&amp;p=1&amp;u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&amp;r=1&amp;f=G&amp;l=50&amp;co1=AND&amp;d=pall&amp;s1=%274486857%27.WKU.&amp;OS=PN/4486857&amp;RS=PN/4486857";>patents</a>.
 -->
+his <a href="https://patents.justia.com/patent/4486857";>patents</a>.
 When he first saw Hypercard, he didn't think it had anything to do
 with his patent, with his &ldquo;Inventions&rdquo;.  It didn't look
 similar.  When his lawyer told him that you could read the patents as
@@ -316,9 +312,9 @@
 </p>
 
 <p>
-What do you do with the <a
-href="https://web.archive.org/web/20060115162715/http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US04873662__";>
-British Telecom patent</a> on traversing hyper links together with dial-up
+What do you do with the
+<a href="https://patents.justia.com/patent/4873662";>British
+Telecom patent</a> on traversing hyper links together with dial-up
 access?  Traversing hyper links is absolutely essential to a major use
 of computers these days.  Dial-up access is also essential.  How do
 you do without this feature, which, by the way, isn't even one
@@ -336,7 +332,9 @@
 crushed.  They were never really available because the patent holders
 threatened them.
 <span class="gnun-split"></span>Then, one program got away.  The
-program <a 
href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170315023711/http://www.pgpi.org/";>PGP</a>, 
which initially was
+program <a
+href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170315023711/http://www.pgpi.org/";>
+PGP</a>, which initially was
 released as free software.  Apparently, the patent holders by the time
 they got around to attacking, realized they might get too much bad
 publicity.  So they imposed restrictions making it for non-commercial
@@ -663,10 +661,9 @@
 
 <p>
 When programmers look at a lot of software patents, they say this
-is ridiculously obvious!
-<!-- Another dead link.
-<a href="http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/patents/patent-comments.html";>
-obvious</a>! --> Patent bureaucrats have all sorts of excuses to
+is ridiculously <a
+href="https://web.archive.org/web/20040604051644/http://people.qualcomm.com/karn/patents/patent-comments.html";>
+obvious</a>! Patent bureaucrats have all sorts of excuses to
 justify ignoring what programmers think.  They say &ldquo;Oh! But you
 have to consider it in terms of the way things were 10 or 20 years
 ago&rdquo;.  Then they discovered that if they talk something to death
@@ -697,8 +694,8 @@
 so-on.  Many historical accidents determine whether a patent is valid.
 
 <span class="gnun-split"></span>In fact, it is a weird thing that the
-<a href="http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US04873662__";>British
-Telecom following hyper links together with telephone access
+<a href="https://patents.justia.com/patent/4873662";>
+British Telecom following hyper links together with telephone access
 patent</a>, I think, was applied for in 1975.  I think it was in 1974
 that I developed the info package for the first time.  The info
 package allows you to traverse hyper links and people did use
@@ -1283,7 +1280,7 @@
 
 <p class="unprintable">Updated:
 <!-- timestamp start -->
-$Date: 2019/03/09 16:56:26 $
+$Date: 2019/03/17 10:16:47 $
 <!-- timestamp end -->
 </p>
 </div>