Dr. Dobb's Journal June 2001
Larry, Mo, and Joe are working technology reporters. Actually, I've never seen any of them work, but that's simply because the only place I ever run into them is at Foo Bar, the late-night place where I moonlight as a relief bartender and where technology reporters come to be indiscreet in dim lighting. Tonight, the first of the three to arrive was Joe, and did he ever look down.
"The usual?" I asked perfunctorily, as I popped the top off a cream soda. But I had popped too soon.
"No, give me a beer," he said. "I've had a bad week."
Larry walked in just then, said the rather more elaborate hellos that his upbringing brings out, and graciously accepted a glass of white wine. Larry is British and it slips out at conventional moments, although usually he's as rude as any American tech reporter.
"So how is California's energy crisis affecting Foo Bar?" he asked.
I shrugged. "Management was never big on lighting anyway."
"I had a really bad week," Joe said.
"I suppose as long as you can keep the fridges cool — that's too bad, Joe — I suppose there's not all that much electricity involved in running a bar."
"More than you'd think," I said, taking a slug of the cream soda I'd opened. I don't drink alcohol on the job, but if I had to drink much of that stuff I might be driven to it. I'm a Jolt man. "We've had to eliminate all blender drinks," I added.
Mo claimed her stool just then, filling out the quorum. "If that means no blender-drink drinkers, it would be a plus. Scotch, rocks."
"I had a really awful week," Joe said.
"If it has something to do with that hideous airline magazine you write for, I don't want to hear about it," Mo told him.
"I got sued," Joe said, sniffing his beer between tentative sips.
"Really?" Larry said. "Sued over what?"
"It was my web site. I don't know if you know that I have a large collection of ceramic cats — "
Mo held up a hand. "I didn't realize that it was necessary to mention it, but I really don't want to hear about ceramic cats."
"Give him a chance, Mo," Larry said. "If what he says is really asinine, then it's just that much more ammunition to use against him." He smiled sweetly. "Go ahead, Joseph."
Joe looked at him warily, but went on. "I wanted to put up a web site to sell some of my cats. Some of the ones I'm willing to part with if the price is right, you know. But I'm no programmer, so I hired this kid to do the HTML — "
"HTML coding is not programming," Mo cut in.
"Let him tell the story, Mo," Larry said.
"Well, I got the site up and immediately got a letter from attorneys for CatFanatics2001, saying that I had appropriated their intellectual property."
Mo squinted at him. "You ripped off their content?"
Larry shook his head. "Not a good policy, Joe. I'd settle, if I were you."
"No, no, I didn't steal their content — "
"Look and feel, eh? That's a subtle one, but you just can't take whatever you — "
"No, it wasn't a look-and-feel suit, either."
"Ah, the code. Joe, HTML may not be programming, but it still represents someone's creative efforts — "
"I didn't steal their HTML, for pete's sake."
Mo slid her glass toward me for a refill and turned toward Joe. "You fool. You mad fool. You posted secret Scientology documents to your site, didn't you? You're done for now."
"Mo, he said it was some cat site that was suing him, not the Scientologists."
"Probably a front." She looked around the bar, suddenly puzzled by something.
"No, no, no. I didn't post any Scientology documents. It was a business-methods patent suit."
Larry perked up his ears and asked for details.
"Well, apparently CatFanatics2001 has a patent on what I'm doing. They quoted the legal language in the letter. Said they had a patent on quote 'selling ceramic collectibles via a network using a pointing device such as a mouse or trackpad,' unquote."
Larry whistled softly. "That's just a little bit scary," he said.
Mo poked my arm. "Hey, is it darker than usual, or is it just me?"
"It's not just you," I said.
Note: This story is fiction. A patent such as described here is not one of the 2500 business-method patents issued annually in the software field alone. At least I don't think it is. I haven't done a search.
Michael Swaine
editor-at-large
mike@swaine.com