we are all in violation

we are all in violation

[Colin Rafferty]

US Patent 5,377,354:

"Method and system for sorting and prioritizing electronic mail messages"

http://patents.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/ifetch4?ENG+PATBIB-ALL+0+920546+0+3+438078+OF+1+1+1+PN%2f5377354

-- 
Colin

Re: we are all in violation

[Samuel Tardieu]

On 19/01, Colin Rafferty wrote:
| US Patent 5,377,354:
| 
| "Method and system for sorting and prioritizing electronic mail messages"
| 
| http://patents.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/ifetch4?ENG+PATBIB-ALL+0+920546+0+3+438078+OF+1+1+1+PN%2f5377354

Shouldn't be hard to find prior use examples. Also, this patent means nothing
as long as it has not been challenged in court.

  Sam
-- 
Samuel Tardieu -- sam@inf.enst.fr

Re: we are all in violation

[Jon 'tex' Boone]

Colin Rafferty <craffert@ms.com> writes:

> US Patent 5,377,354:
> 
> "Method and system for sorting and prioritizing electronic mail messages"
> 
> http://patents.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/ifetch4?ENG+PATBIB-ALL+0+920546+0+3+438078+OF+1+1+1+PN%2f5377354

  Did you actually read the contents or just the abstract?

  I read the abstract and it sounds like something that the Andrew
  Message System had a long time ago (via the FLAMES language) - the
  devil being in the details of exactly *which* method DEC claims to
  have invented. 

-- 
--------------------------------------------------
Jon 'tex' Boone            Senior Network Engineer
ISC Networking          University of Pennsylvania
tex@isc.upenn.edu                   (215) 898-2477

Re: we are all in violation

[Karl Kleinpaste]

"Jon 'tex' Boone" <tex@isc.upenn.edu> writes:
> I read the abstract and it sounds like something that the Andrew
> Message System had a long time ago (via the FLAMES language)

I've been using Gnus (er, GNUS, back then) as an MUA since
approximately 1988, when I used some external shell script hackery and
could only use nnspool.  I still use the same mailbox naming patterns
that I decided upon at the time.  Even then, my mechanism included a
prioritization methodology using both splitting into mailboxes and
killfiles, of course, to make unimportant things disappear.

It's nothing new at all.  The very first attack by DEC er Compaq er
DECpaq in an infringement claim against someone would be tossed out in 
a heartbeat on demonstration of prior use.  This really is not a new
concept -- Gnus just does it best. :-)