> More importantly, please see http://www.thirdvoice.com/copyright.htm.
> I'm most concerned by the mention of "numerous patents pending".
> Does this bother any of you as much as it does me? Do you have
> any ideas on how to make sure they don't happen to patent something
> as general as third-party Web annotation?
The problem, in general, is that the PTO seems to have a remarkable
blindness towards prior art in the whole area of software. I've heard
all sorts of people suggest that it would be a good idea for someone
to try to put together an independant prior art database, but so far,
I'm not aware of any efforts along those lines which have actually
resulted in something comprehensive enough to be really useful.
Greg Aharonian's Internet Patent News Service mailing list might be a
useful resource here, but I can't find an archive on line. He
apparently sells 'em on CD:
http://lwn.net/1998/1217/a/ipns.html
is a blurb with details.
rst