I gave HJ or FS the idea of a very, very similar place marker function before this feature was released in what I believe was jaws 5. In fact, I vaguely recall my suggestion got as far as Eric Damery, and he himself wrote me telling me that this idea was a good one and that their development team was already working on incorporating such a feature into their next jaws release. My point is that this place marker idea was just about bordering on idiot level common sense, so I can definitely see others--especially software engineers-- concluding that this would be a much needed feature of a screen reader. You know, now that I think about it, I might just send my e-mail interactions with Eric Damery to GW Micro as my little contribution to their discovery.
Matthew----- Original Message ----- From: "Jamal Mazrui" <empower@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 4:21 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 On Fri, 25 Jul 2008, Ken Perry wrote:Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:43:30 -0700 From: Ken Perry <whistler@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Reply-To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: Freedom Scientific's Lawyers Strike AgainI say let them fight and while they are fighting I hope Saratek is coding.Ken -----Original Message----- From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Jared Wright Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 6:58 PM To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Freedom Scientific's Lawyers Strike Again Hi James, Worked here just now, so I'm not sure what's at fault. The long and short is that Freedom claims GW Micro's implementation of webpageplacemarkers in Window Eyes 7 violates their patint on, I guess, being ableto have placemarkers on a webpage. They filed litigation today. Jared Jared James Panes wrote: > Hi Guys, > > Just thought I would let you know that this page is not available. > > Did FS lawyers have something to do with this? > > Regards, > Jim > jimpanes@xxxxxxxxx > jimpanes@xxxxxxxxxxxx > "Everything is easy when you know how." > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jared Wright" <wright.jaredm@xxxxxxxxx> > To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 12:53 PM > Subject: Freedom Scientific's Lawyers Strike Again > > > http://www.gwmicro.com/blog/index.php/all/2008/07/24/do_companies_real > ly_compete_on_who_has_t > > Read it and weep, at least if seeing screen readers compete on their> functionality for all our general betterment is at all appealing to > you.> Jared > > > __________ > View the list's information and change your settings at > //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind > > __________ > View the list's information and change your settings at > //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind > > > __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind__________ View the list's information and change your settings at //www.freelists.org/list/programmingblind __________ NOD32 3298 (20080725) Information __________ This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com
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