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From: Geoff Bull <geoff@research.canon.com.au>
Subject: Re: Decoding an octet stream
Date: 1999/12/02
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To: Kenneth Almquist <ka@socrates.hr.lucent.com.no_spam>
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Kenneth Almquist wrote:
> 
> The allegedly novel idea is to write the data in a
> cannonical format, making it unnecessary to run conversion programs
> when moving files or file systems.

Not quite, as that would involve magic!
I read it that the patent claims as novel the idea of
transmitting data in a canonical format, so that the
sender doesn't need to know the binary representation
required by the receiver.

This patent would cover any program that, for example,
exchanges data in standard "network" order.

As I said, I think XDR predates it, can anybody verify that?

This patent illustrates the (ridiculous?) need to do patent
searches for *everything*. Unfortuneately, I couldn't find
this patent even after Robert gave me the name "Mark Williams".
(I thought MW would be the inventor, and not the name of
the company the patent was assigned to :-( ). And to think,
I get paid to do patent searching!

Geoff