JMRI copyright infringement case

[Bob Jacobsen]

A short update re Jacobsen v. Katzer, the model train/open source 
software copyright-infringement and patent case. As you may remember, 
we asked the court for a preliminary injunction back in mid-January.

<http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/updates.html#2007-01-19>

Twelve weeks have passed, and the court hasn't yet issued a ruling on 
our request, or the other motions in the case.

There has been some action on the patent side of the case. One of 
three continuation applications issued as a patent, despite its 
claims being identical to those in an earlier application (which is 
forbidden under 35 U.S.C. 101; apparently the examiner was confused 
by the blizzard of 5000 pages of documentation which Mr. Katzer 
provided to hide the more relevant documents). Another continuation 
application had all claims rejected by another examiner who 
questioned whether it contained anything patentable; Mr. Katzer has 
since abandoned that application. That's very good news.

On the licensing front, JMRI has been using the Artistic License for 
many years. The group is now working through the details of switching 
to the GPL and LGPL. We appreciate all the useful comments about 
doing this that've been on the license-discuss list & from people 
off-list. We've learned a lot from those.

Thanks again for your interest and help.

Bob
-- 
Bob Jacobsen +1-510-486-7355 fax +1-510-643-8497 AIM, Skype JacobsenRG