Re: Sun's interval patents Bill, This is an absolutely intolerable situation, and you need to do something  about it, asap. Ray Moore ----- Original Message -----  From: "Martin Berz"  To:  Sent: Wednesday, April 20, 2005 12:19 PM Subject: Re: Sun's interval patents > Zenon, George, Vladik, > > indeed the patents would interfere with most interval tools, and this has  > all > kinds of consequences. Unfortunately from our end, this situation has now  > led > to the fact that we are not allowed to talk to people involved in the  > patent > applications anymore to prevent any conceivable later claims of knowledge > transfer about material in the applications. This is of course similar to  > the > way that SUN isn't talking about it either, and it unfortunately seems to  > be > the way lawyers do want to handle such matters. > > In fact, the funding agencies DOE and NSF are very worried about  > endangering > the approximately $5 Million that went into the development of our COSY  > tool > so far, because obviously several pieces of it would fall under the claims  > of > the patent applications. So the COSY project could conceivably be shut  > down or > at least attacked and hopelessly bogged down by an overzealous army of SUN > lawyers. How far-fetched is this worry? Who knows; I would have considered  > it > hopelessly far-fetched to think that anyone would want to apply for such > patents in the first place. > > Just recently this had the very frustrating effect that we cannot interact > anymore with one of our past valued consultants who is involved on the  > fringe > of the patent issues. We also could not follow a request from the European > Space Agency to apply the COSY validated integrators to some of their  > solar > system orbit problems, since although ESA stated to me that they strongly > discourage such patent efforts, some of their potential contractors are > apparently involved in it. > > What a pity it all is. > > Martin Berz > > >