Re: NCSA patents on MOSAIC ???!!!

Tom Magliery (mag@ncsa.uiuc.edu)
Wed, 25 Jan 95 12:57:25 EST

At 8:31 AM 1/25/95, Leonardo@aol.com wrote:
>An article published in last Sunday's Chicago Tribune suggests that the
>University of Illinois has applied for several patents on technology relating
>to MOSAIC. If this is true, then they appear to be getting ready for a
>Unisys/Compuserve-style "hook them then cook them" move against the Internet
>community.

Not even remotely true. In fact, ridiculous. Software patents would be
completely the opposite of NCSA's position (both as a group and -- for
everyone I know -- individual people) on the idea of open standards. For
example, look for near-immediate support in NCSA Mosaic for other image
formats, in the wake of the GIF flap.

The only legal-type mumbo-jumbo that NCSA is involved in re: Mosaic is that
we've put trademarks on the spinning globe logo, "NCSA Mosaic" and (I
think) "Mosaic". No patents.

Just further confirmation that newspaper reporters and technology often
don't mix.

mag

--
Tom Magliery ** NCSA ** 605 E Springfield ** Champaign IL 61820 ** USA