Re: NGC4LIB Digest - 30 Jan 2007 to 31 Jan 2007 (#2007-21)

I'd love to see a state university contest it. First, because they
have the pockets, and second, if that fails, they're probably immune
anyway:

From Samuel's _Illustrated Story of Copyright_ (p. 216):

"It appears that the federal government cannot enforce copyright laws
against states, and that states are thus free to infringe copyrights,
patents, trademarks, or a number of other federal rights with
impunity."

This loophole has generally emerged in pharma contexts—states use it
to threaten companies to lower prices—but it would apply to NC State's
faceting just as easily.

Tim

On 2/1/07, Kathryn La Barre <kathryn.labarre <at> gmail.com> wrote:
> I too am very interested, and extremely concerned by these patent
> developments for faceted interfaces. I attended a recent (November
> 2006) Endeca presentation for the U of Illinois library consortium in
> which the sales representatives implied that the first Endeca patent
> (May 2006) was just the beginning - that there were a number of others
> in the works, and that they "weren't looking to put anyone out of
> business" rather they indicated interest in collecting licensing fees
> - to compensate them for their research and development.
>
> A parallel thread just began on the FacetedClassification Discussion
> (FCD)  list -- but the response has not been as robust as we see here.
> I'd love to move some of the examples just given - especially