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Technology Stocks : IATV-ACTV Digital Convergence Software-HyperTV -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: NY Stew who wrote (6356)	8/29/1999 3:01:00 PM
From: Mike Fredericks	Respond to of 13157

This post is semi-facetious and very OT: In response to your comment that Gemstar patented sending HTML over cable, wireless, satellite, etc., I said: DirecPC sends a bunch of HTML via Satellite, for example. You responded: Hughes has long been a Gemstar licensee as are all of its other DirecTV system manufacturers (Thomson, Sony, Philips. etc.). My response: This is absolutely nuts. Sure the patent may stand up in court but this is still ridiculous. If someone had patented "sending HTML over TCP/IP" or "Sending HTML over fiber optic cable" we'd all be screwed. Gemstar's patents may make great business sense, and the Gemstar shareholders may be very well rewarded for this, but (even though I'm a capitalist at heart) this stinks. Reminds me of MSFT getting the patent for XML when the W3C didn't know they had applied for it. MSFT promises that they won't ever enforce the patent, that they just got it for self-defense, yadda yadda yadda. But wait until XML becomes standard and everyone's using it and BillG slaps a license fee on everyone and everything. See also: the GIF patent which went unenforced for years. Sorry for the OT. To make it relevant: if Gemstar really gets a patent on "sending HTML over cable" then wouldn't that royally screw IATV because now if they want to send HTML to hypertv customers they'd have to pay Gemstar a royalty. Hope everyone here sees exactly how ridiculous this patent is, and why the people in the patent office should be kids 25-30 out of school with 3-4 years of experience rather than old farts who are in their 60's who think that bar code scanners at grocery stores are neat technology (a la Pres Geo.H.W. Bush) -Mike