---------- Forwarded message ----------

 Date: Mon, 23 Sep 1996 18:53:39 -0400
 From: Gregory Aharonian <srctran@world.std.com>
 Reply-To: patent-news@europe.std.com
 To: patent-news@world.std.com
 Subject: PATNEWS: Weird software patent lawsuit - Internet is a player piano

!19960924  Weird software patent lawsuit - the Internet is a player piano

    Increasingly, with the 30,000+ software patents out there, the
Internet is being looked at the as the mother of all litigation pots.
One of the fun parts about being a patent buster is seeing to what
lengths some companies are going to "interpret" their patents to read
on the Internet.

    However, some of these cases are really stretching reality.  If
anyone has details on the following bit of gossip, please send it my
way.  It appeared in a recent issue of Computer System Design (9/96,
page 76-77) on how intellectual property rights in the
computing/communications fields are starting to impede progress:

                For starters, there is no clear monopoly on
                basic technologies here.  These type of claims
                have been made in the past and some are still
                being attempted.  A case in point is the
                company that is claiming its patent involving
                a way to sell player piano music somehow gives
                them the right to "a cut" whenever you download
                a file from a network.

These guys should team up with E-data.  Anyways, if you know the
details please send them my way.

Greg Aharonian¶
Internet Patent News Service¶
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA, 02178¶
617-489-3727,  patents@world.std.com¶
(for info on free subscription, send 'help' to   patents@world.std.com )¶
(for prior art search services info, send 'prior' to patents@world.std.com )

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 [ Editor's Note:
 [
 [ I gave some momentary thought to whether this message could
 [ be propogated.  The  source is a lawyer, right?  A brief
 [ browsing of the USENET Newsgroups indicates this message has
 [ been widely distributed.  I've included it here becuase
 [ its unlikely that any of the readers here see the other
 [ newsgroups where this was posted.
 [
 [ Does anyone know anything about this ?
 [
 [ Jody