Re: [OT] Satellites and Xmas

>
>
>>And then you find out that perhaps you 
>>*have* reinvented the wheel, but it really 
>>doesn't make you any less clever 
>>necessarily. Just somewhat ignorant of 
>>prior developments, but with the amount of 
>>development going on in one project (let 
>>alone the sum total of the publicly 
>>accessible Internet), does this really 
>>surprise anyone? 
>>    
>>
>
>And then you discover that someone else has patented the obvious code
>that makes the wheel and your company is the recipient of a law suit. 
:(
>
>Roger
>
>  
>
Talking about patents...

When I was working for Lucent Technologies in the emergency services 
group (911) we
had a great idea to take the address being sent (lookup against the 
phone number returning
the address) and displaying the location on a map. It turns out that 
someone had patented
the idea of displaying a location based on the phone number. Mind you 
they could not
patent the display on the map based on the address. So:

patented: not challenged
phone number -> map display

not patented: used for years
phone number -> address

not patented: used for years
address -> map display

could infringe on patent
phone number -> address   address ->  map display

The company decided not to go with the system even though it could have 
been a great
feature due to the "potential" of a  law suit. : (

Scott