KDE violates IBM patent

[Arnoud Engelfriet]

Marius Amado Alves wrote:
> >It seems to me that should be enough prior art to kill this patent.
> 
> Clearly there is. But is this fact sufficient to protect someone 
> (re)deploying the mechanism? Or must the patent be revoked in some way 
> prior to that? 

US patents are presumed valid. A court will assume a patent is
valid unless the defendant can prove that it isn't. So the burden
is on you to come up with prior art and to ask the court to please 
revoke the patent. You can do this if you get sued or just if you
feel like it, although most people don't feel like spending tens of
thousands of dollars without a good reason.

I haven't studied this patent in detail, just looked at the claims.
It seems more than just detecting caps lock and giving a message.
My first impression is that it covers the more specific idea of
detecting a wrong password being typed, noticing caps lock being
on, and saying "Wrong password, perhaps due to caps lock being on"

That kind of invention isn't anticipated by DOS or Windows utilities
that show the capslock status on the screen. It could be if you
could find a login screen that exhibited the above feature and that
existed more than a year before the filing date of this patent.

IAAL, but TINLA.

Arnoud

-- 
Arnoud Engelfriet, Dutch patent attorney - Speaking only for myself
Patents, copyright and IPR explained for techies: http://www.iusmentis.com/
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