Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!intercon!amanda@intercon.com
From: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Hypercard license Infringement !!
Message-ID: <1465@intercon.com>
Date: 21 Sep 89 20:59:40 GMT
References: Hyperzoom,zoomrect <3710@unix.SRI.COM>
Sender: news@intercon.com
Reply-To: amanda@intercon.com (Amanda Walker)
Organization: InterCon Systems Corporation
Lines: 25

In article <3710@unix.SRI.COM>, stores@unix.SRI.COM (Matt Mora) writes:
> Today (9-21-89) I got a call from our pattent office
> saying that SRI cold be held liable for patent infringement
> because of hypercards scripting capabilities. 
> 
> A company called HyperZoom wants SRI to protect itself by buying
> a license from them for about $10 a mac.

They've actually been doing this for a while.  They make a product (for PCs,
last I knew) called "ZoomRacks", which has a few similarities to HyperCard,
notably a "card" metaphor and some scripting capabilities.

What they claim to have a patent on is a "rack-of-cards" metaphor, and instead
of trying to take on Apple about HyperCard itself, they are trying to get
anyone whose stack might infringe on this patent to pay them a license fee.
They think of anyone writing HyperCard stacks to be fair game.

As for me, I'm pretty skeptical.  Even for a computer patent, this seems
to be stretching things pretty far...

Anyone have more concrete information?

--
Amanda Walker
amanda@intercon.com