Re: ARC patent

Nicolai Tufar <ntufar(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> I would like to contribute my $.02 to this issue.
> I speak as not a lawyer but as someone tho worked
> one and a half year in a patent bureau and even
> got a certificate from WIPO (http://academy.wipo.int/
> those who interested may attend the course too, it
> is free).
> [ much good stuff snipped ]

Many thanks for the informed commentary.

I'd like to make another point, which is that it's quite unclear what
the patent will end up covering. Claim 1 essentially claims using two
lists to manage a cache. That's not going to withstand scrutiny as an
independent claim --- heck, we've got prior art for that in our own code
(see catcache.c, which has done something of the sort since Berkeley
days). Somewhere between claim 1 and claim 61 there is a sufficiently
specific concept to be patentable, but we won't know what that is until
the final patent is issued.

There's no moral turpitude in wanting to see what the issued patent
looks like before deciding whether we violate it or what to do about it.

That's not to say that we shouldn't be proactive in doing something as
soon as we conveniently can. It's to say that we don't have to panic
into not releasing 8.0.

regards, tom lane