Patents, dlopen(), and SunOS.
Nov. 1st, 2005 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
strredwolfI'm no lawyer, so I may be wrong.
You probably know of one patent, the Eolas "browser plug in" patent, which threatens to kill every known web browser out there. And you probably know that Microsoft is fighting the patent, because it's being sued. And that everyone went about it the wrong way.
So (given I have not even read the actual patent details) I thought "wait, there's this function in Unix called 'dlopen()' that is commonly used in Netscape and Mozilla to load in plugins. It's even described that way. Where does it date back to?"
A google search results in a Nov 16th, 1995 Sun Microsystems document describing a bug in SunOS 4.1.4's dlopen() call.
The patent was awarded in 1998.
Whoops! I belive we got prior art from Sun! Quick, someone sue the Patent Office with this evidence!
You probably know of one patent, the Eolas "browser plug in" patent, which threatens to kill every known web browser out there. And you probably know that Microsoft is fighting the patent, because it's being sued. And that everyone went about it the wrong way.
So (given I have not even read the actual patent details) I thought "wait, there's this function in Unix called 'dlopen()' that is commonly used in Netscape and Mozilla to load in plugins. It's even described that way. Where does it date back to?"
A google search results in a Nov 16th, 1995 Sun Microsystems document describing a bug in SunOS 4.1.4's dlopen() call.
The patent was awarded in 1998.
Whoops! I belive we got prior art from Sun! Quick, someone sue the Patent Office with this evidence!
