The U.S. Patent Office continues to reexamine the patent process in an effort to avoid patent-inspired chaos in the software industry. Responding to recent complaints, Commissioner Bruce Lehman said "I'm not going to let people sneak patents through this office that shouldn't be issued." He is considering making patent applications public so that knowledgeable observers have the opportunity to come forward with relevant prior art. Examiners are now tapping into the Software Patent Institute prior-art database.
The legal battles between UNIX System Labs and the University of California over who has the right to what with UNIX seems to have been resolved. UC has agreed not to use or distribute "restricted" files on the BSD NET/2 release. USL is granting UC the right to use and distribute "encumbered" files as long as USL copyright is acknowledged. USL has also certified 4.4 BSD Lite as being free of USL code. The list of restricted and encumbered files remains secret.