Some new patent fun

[Posted March 3, 2005 by corbet]

Remember Jeff Merkey? He's the guy who tried to buy a license to take the Linux kernel proprietary last year, among many other exploits. He has now posted a message, claiming "another Linux patent," pointing to U.S. Patent 6,862,609, granted on March 1 to a certain Jeff Merkey. The patent itself (which appears to cover a scheme for running a RAID array over an FDDI-like network) is not particularly threatening, but it is interesting to note that he has assigned the patent to the Canopy Group. Anybody who wondered who Jeff was working for need wonder no longer.

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Some new patent fun

Posted Mar 3, 2005 17:49 UTC (Thu) by steven97 (guest, #2702) [Link]

Surely a patent like this can be overturned in the blink of an eye?
Linux itself is prior art.

Why overturn it?

Posted Mar 4, 2005 17:00 UTC (Fri) by southey (guest, #9466) [Link]

Given some of the cases that have been reported, this is very hard to occur because it means that the PTO made a mistake and they do not like that.

IANAL (so seek real legal advice) but some of the reported cases indicate that it is probably easier and more successful to be taken to court, especially as the burden of proof changes away from you (but there are risks like what can be examined). As IP lawyers have said on Groklaw, it is the details that matter not the general description. So it just might be the patent is valid but the scope of the patent is what needs limiting (which really can only be done in court).

Some new patent fun

Posted Mar 3, 2005 18:38 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

This is an example of how incredibly sick the U.S. legal system has become, that govt. officials would let someone patent this technology even with the incredible amout of prior art available.

Some new patent fun

Posted Mar 3, 2005 19:52 UTC (Thu) by trithemius (guest, #18658) [Link]

Does the prior art come before March 7, 2002 when the application was filed? IIRC that'd be the date to beat..

Please note dates

Posted Mar 3, 2005 20:05 UTC (Thu) by hchristeller (guest, #4246) [Link]

The filing date is March 7, 2002. That suggests that Jeff worked for Canopy three or more years ago. It tells us nothing about his current employment.

What I find interesting is the assignment to Canopy, the holding company, rather than Caldera or any of the other Canopy companies. If this was developed by Caldera employees using Caldera funding, but assigned to Canopy, that suggests that Caldera/SCO was not truly separate from Canopy. IBM may be able to go after Canopy for damages, not just SCO.

Name sounds familiar...

Posted Mar 3, 2005 23:00 UTC (Thu) by xoddam (subscriber, #2322) [Link]

Is Jeff Merky any relation to Stef Murky?

Some new patent fun

Posted Mar 4, 2005 12:58 UTC (Fri) by sammythesnake (guest, #17693) [Link]

Any chance of a link to Jeff's article?

Cheers & God bless
Sam "SammyTheSnake" Penny

Link to the article

Posted Mar 4, 2005 13:24 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Here is a link to the thread on Gmane. There's not much beyond the pointer in Jeff's posting, though.

Some new patent fun

Posted Mar 5, 2005 13:23 UTC (Sat) by LintuxCx (guest, #14448) [Link]

"Mr. Merkey worked at Novell".

Wasn't Novell also owned by the Canopy Group? At least, some time ago?