Subject: Interesting Patent

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Dec 1999 01:42:14 EST

Hi,

I have been interested in the ICAL specifications, and am looking forward to 
their final developments, but one of my collegues hapened accross a Patent 
which was just granted (5,960,406) which seems to patent many of the features 
which were developed as part of this forum.  Is that allowed?  The patent is 
for a product called eCal that is used in a calendar product called 
appointnet.  You can view the patent information via this link: <A 
HREF="http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&
p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5,960,406'.WKU.&OS=PN/5,960,406&R
S=PN/5,960,406">US Patent Office (Patent 5,960,406)</A>

I'm sure this is a matter of someone patenting a product which was developed 
after the specifications were developed by other parties, but I was wondering 
if it will cause any problems with people who want to develope Calandering 
software based on the RFC's from iCalendar and don't know about the patnet 
until they get a call from some lawyer.

Brian Westerman
Syzygy Incorporated