How come include file patent isn't mentioned in position paper?

[Joe Buck]

>> dc at caveat.berkeley.edu (Dave Cottingham) writes:
>>    Is this include file patent a hoax,

In article <14730 at ulysses.att.com> smb at ulysses.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes:
>The patent number is 4,674,040, issued on June 16, 1987 to Barbara Barker,
>Irene Hernandez, and Rex McCaskill, and is assigned to (blare of trumpets)
>IBM.  RMS kindly provided me with the number a few weeks ago; I just
>got a copy of the patent.

In that case (unless it took the Patent Office 10 years or more to process
the application), clearly there is no danger of gcc or g++ being found
in violation of the patent, since the first C compiler that used #include
as it is now used is far, far, older than 1987, and court decisions have
made it clear that using prior art is never a violation of a patent,
even if the patent is found to be valid (IBM's patent would then be
restricted to be much narrower in scope, covering only the specific
application it was filed for).

Still, the patent clearly should not be granted, because it claims things
that had been in common use for years.

I was concerned that this might be a much older patent, in which case there
really would be a danger.
--
Joe Buck
jbuck at janus.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!janus.berkeley.edu!jbuck