Kathryn La Barre wrote:
>
> I too am very interested, and extremely concerned by these patent
> developments for faceted interfaces. I attended a recent (November
> 2006) Endeca presentation for the U of Illinois library consortium in
> which the sales representatives implied that the first Endeca patent
> (May 2006) was just the beginning - that there were a number of others
> in the works, and that they "weren't looking to put anyone out of
> business" rather they indicated interest in collecting licensing fees
> - to compensate them for their research and development.
>
If search reaches the point where the public use of clusters (facets) needs
to be defended in the courts (or in the board room),
there is ample public evidence to support the contention that such
technology is part of the public domain. The writing of Uta Priss is
important. As you pointed out her CV at
http://www.upriss.org.uk/top/research.html, presents a lot of historic
references. Also as you point out, the work of Marti Hearst in her Flamenco
project, http://flamenco.berkeley.edu/pubs.html has historic value. The
information produced by these authors precede Endeca by a lot of time.
Also there are records in the U.S.Patent office itself, including my patent
of 1986 (# 5,206,949) that disclosed what can only be seen as facets. (The
name wasn't around then but in the patent's example we divided hotels along
dimensions such as size, activities on site, proximity to airports and
businesses, etc.) There is also a U.S. Patent filed about 3 months before
mine that does the same thing. I'd need to look for the author and number
if it is of interest.
The patent history of any technology is useful in the public sector. The
record that is created by the patent office often works to the advantage of
the public domain. It's the innovators who pay the patent attorneys and
corporate lawyers who are at risk.
If Endeca is onto something else in search, that is their right, and we may
all benefit from it at least in some indirect way
Nancy Cochran
nancy.cochran_at_earthlink.net
Received on Fri Feb 02 2007 - 11:25:01 EST