Hi Jamal, Sad to say, I believe that the only clear winners in this law suit are the lawyers. It would appear that the purpose of this lawsuit is not to protect FS interests, but to suppress fair competition. It's not about the place marker patent, it's about trying to stop the release of another screen reader that has scripting capabilities. My opinion on the matter is that FS better get off their collective buts and fix the problems with their own product rather than trying to eliminate the competition. I hope that FS monitors this group because they have lots of their customers really upset with this kind of attitude. Regards, Jim jimpanes@xxxxxxxxx jimpanes@xxxxxxxxxxxx "Everything is easy when you know how." ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx> To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 7:21 AM Subject: RE: Freedom Scientific's Lawyers Strike Again Hi Ken, I suspect you were being tongue in cheeck (and I love your sense of humor!). Although legal fights can be entertaining, I don't see how this is in the interest of blind people, forcing a company to spend money on defending against litigation rather than on R&D to improve access to mainstream software. FYI -- the patent FS claims was violated is described at http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PTXT&s1=%226,993,707+B2%22&OS= I'm amazed that FS thought its placemarker feature was innovative enough to patent. This seems like an example of taking advantage of the magical nature of assistive technology to the uninformed, and then trying to leverage it in questionable trade practices for corporate gain. The fact that GW was never notified of the concern while its product has been in beta with public demos strongly suggests that the aim is to damage GW economically, not actually to protect intellectual property. What do others think? Jamal __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind