Re: Oracle Innobase Purchase Impacts MySQL.

Serge Rielau wrote:

> Software Patents need to be submitted in the US within one year after
> the product is publically available. Give it 3 years to get a patent
> issues (which is on the conservative side).
> So when was Oracle 4 shipped? Any patent issued, say 4 years or later
> will be only be valid w.r.t. algorithms introduced at the time or later
> (i.e. improvements). So, without having read through the patents in
> detail, the first MVCC patent I saw was from 1995, so anything MVCC
> available in Oracle 1991 (there is likely a way to get the submission
> date) would pretty much be up for grabs for these technical reasons.
> Patents do not get granted in retrospect.
> You can't today patent that idea you blurted out 2 years ago at the
> x-mas party when you were drunk.
>
> Cheers
> Serge

Patents can be extended. Amended. And refiled with modifications. When you have a stable of patent attorney's anything is possible. Look at how long some of the pharmaceutical companies have been able to hang onto patents.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)