Firstly I'd like to say that I'm following this thread and its progress and i'll be in touch as things begin to develop further
now onto other things
I've been searching for legal presidence in regards to linking laws pertaining to PATENTS. I've only found one so far and it deals with a hyperlinking patent that in no way is similar to our needs
(it describes a system in which multiple users, located at remote terminals, can access data stored at a central computer. The data is received by the remote terminals via the telephone lines)
however while reading, I found that it gives an excellent description of how they determine 'infringement':
Quote:
Determining whether a device infringes another's patent is a two step process.
#1 First the court construes the claims to determine their scope and meaning.
#2 The next step is to compare the allegedly infringing device against the claims as construed to determind whether the device embodies every limitation of the claims.
A device literally infringes a patent, when it "embodies every limititation of the asserted claims"
"literal infringement of a claim exists when each of the clain limitations "reads on," or in other words is found in the accused device."
Even if a device does not literally infringe a patent, it may still infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. Infringement under the doctrine of equivalents applies when there are insubstantial differences between the claimed invention and the accused product.
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Now am I being blonde here or does Acacia hold a patent on hyperlinking one site to another?
Not that I know of and if thats the case, how can any linkers be infringing??
My take on this subject: You can only infringe on a patent itself, you cannot infringe by way of "offering access to" .. unless your patent is FOR 'offering access to'. Their patents are for the 'process of', and do not cover 'access to, via a hyperlink', therefore no infringement.
Moving along, in reguards to hyperlinking lawsuits, so far I've found them dealing with copyright, trademarks, and first amendment types only
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,35306,00.html
""Deep linking has an official seal of approval now that U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp has ruled that websites can legally provide links to any pages on all other sites.""
Deep linking is different from what we are doing
deep linking = linking to specific areas of a website that is copyrighted, without the copyright owners permission
affiliate linking = linking to specific galleries or sponsor programs with their full cooperation, encouragement and knowledge to the extent that they've given us user names and passwords as permission
If deep linking has been ruled as legal ... well you see the picture
here is a link if you guys want to research a bit
http://www.linksandlaw.com/courtdecisions-usa.htm