pdf's of Acts

[Jeremy Barker]

Dave Howe wrote:

> list subscriber wrote:
> > Shirley no matter what the technical merits of the various formats
> > it's not optimal to have UK laws published under license from an
> > offshore corporation?
> Not really as bad as (say) using MS Word format - here is the Adobe take on
> PDF:
>
> | Patent Clarification Notice
> | Reading and Writing PDF Files:
> | Adobe has a number of patents covering technology that is disclosed in the
> | Portable Document Format (PDF) Specification, version 1.3 and later, as
> | documented in PDF Reference and associated Technical Notes (the
> | "Specification". Adobe desires to promote the use of PDF for information
> | interchange among diverse products and applications.
> | Accordingly, the following patents are licensed on a royalty-free,
> | non-exclusive basis for the term of each patent and for the sole purpose
> | of developing software that produces, consumes, and interprets PDF files
> | that are compliant with the Specification:
> |
> | U.S. Patent Numbers:
> |
> |. 5,634,064
> |. 5,737,599
> |. 5,781,785
> |. 5,819,301
> |. 6,028,583
> |In addition, the following patent is licensed on a royalty-free,
> | non-exclusive basis for its term and for the sole purpose of developing
> | software that produces PDF files that are compliant with the Specification
> | (specifically excluding, however, software that consumes and/or interprets
> | PDF files):
> | U.S. Patent Numbers:
> |
> |. 5,860,074
> |
> | The above licenses are limited to only those rights required to implement
> | the Specification and no others. That is to say, Adobe grants only those
> | rights in the above patent(s) necessarily practiced to implement the
> | Specification, and does not grant any rights not required to implement the
> | Specification. The licenses do not grant the right to practice any patent
> | covering other technologies, such as implementation techniques that are
> | not explicitly disclosed in the Specification, nor does it allow the use
> | of any patented feature for any purpose other than as set forth in the
> | applicable license grant. Adobe has other patents in various fields, none
> | of which are hereby licensed.
>
> Hmm. the "output only" patent seems oddly structured to me - in that the
> abstract given seems to bear no relation to the actual claims (which involve
> displaying text overlaying an (graphical watermark?) object to give a
> composite)
>
> and as an aside - the USPO apparently have taken a similar approach to those
> discussed - patents *after* 1976 are in html *with* links to images of the
> actual pages, patents before then are in gif format (images of the paper
> pages) only.

Unless there are corresponding patents in the UK the matter is merely an
interesting curiousity.  US patents only apply within the borders of the United
States and have no applicability to anything anyone might do in the UK.

That's quite separate from the issues of whether the patents in question are
valid (in the US) or describe patentable inventions (in the UK and other EEA
states).

jb