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Compton's NewMedia
From: David Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 1994 15:33:14 -0500
|||||||||| |||||||||| Information Express || || a voorhees report || || || ||||||| 718 369 0906 voice || || 636-8931 MCI Mail || || |||||||||| |||||||||| 411 First St., Brooklyn, NY 11215 ***************************************************************** (c) 1994 Mark Voorhees February 24, 1994 PATENT OFFICE WILL REJECT MOST CLAIMS IN COMPTON'S PATENT First office action will please multimedia industry, which is worried about breadth of software patents The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will reject most and possibly all of the claims in the controversial Compton's NewMedia patent, according to sources. The rejection will be the first so called "office action" in the re-examination of the patent. The patent, which is jointly owned by Tribune Co. and Encyclopaedia Britannica, covers basic techniques for searching and retrieving pictures, sounds, video, and text from CD-ROM programs, such as multimedia enclopedias. Patent Commissioner Bruce Lehman decided to re-examine the patent after the multimedia industry raised such a fuss late last year. The industry is worried that the patent may form a barricade in the evolution of the emerging multimedia and interactive industries. The basis for the rejection will be that "prior art"--articles, books, or other patents--disclosed the same invention. It will likely be issued by the second week of March. The patent owners will have an opportunity to rebut the rejection before the office issues a second office action, which is generally final. Tribune Co. and Encyclopaedia Britannica, can appeal the results of the re-exam to the Board of Patents and Interferences or to federal court. ================================================================ For more information on this story, please await the February 25 issue of Information Law Alert: A Voorhees Report, which will delivered in the next few days. ================================================================ | Mark Voorhees | voorhees reports | | 411 first street | 636-8931 MCI Mail | brooklyn, ny 11215-2507 | | 1-718-369-0906 (voice) | markvoor () phantom com | 1-718-369-3250 (fax)
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