Re: Shared Generic Instance Code

[dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Jon, it is probably better if you not give legal opinions on patents unless
you have studied the area. You say

<<I'm not Mr. Patent Lawyer, but I've had to look into this kind of
stuff over the last few months.  My understanding is that unless
Intermetrics or Gary Bray took out a patent for their approach (prior
to the DEC filing), the prior "written up" idea is not sufficient to
"invalidate" the patent.  Also, it seems that you can't patent an idea
per se - you have to specify how to produce a complete realization of
it.  But to be honest, this stuff seems really opaque to me...>>

This is completely wrong, prior art does NOT have to be in the form
of patents.