[JDEV] integrity messenger questions

[Peter Saint-Andre]

On Tue, 29 Oct 2002, Tijl Houtbeckers wrote:

> And don't forget this part of their website:
> 
> http://www.integritymessenger.com/about.php
> 
> quote:
> "
> It is that desire that has propelled Integrity Messenger to strive for 
> excellence, and achieve industry first technologies never before seen 
> in an Instant Messaging solution. **Many of the technologies within the 
> Integrity Messenger are presently being filed for patent.** (my 
> emphasis) 
> 
> Integrity Messenger would like to thank The Jabber Foundation at this 
> time for allowing us to temporarily infrastructure our software on 
> their server solution while we prepare to launch our own XML/SIP based 
> server. Special thanks to David (the Founder) and Peter for their 
> invitation to join their network." 

Note that they consider Dave Smith to be the "Founder" of Jabber. I had
several long telephone conversations with these folks, and Dave joined me
on one of them. Somehow they got the notion that he founded Jabber. Not
sure how, though.

While I don't seek to minimize Justin's pain in dealing with these people,
I think it's important to understand that they are not a major threat to
the Jabber community. My strong impression from talking with them is that
they were incompetent, paranoid, and borderline delusional. Whether they
lack basic moral scruples or just don't know what they are doing, I'm not
sure (I tend toward the former but I like to give people the benefit of
the doubt). But I can tell you that their supposed patent applications
will not be successful if they are attempting to patent things related to
or based on Jabber -- the Jabber community possesses evidence of prior art
going back to at least the summer of 1999, and Integrity Messenger is a
much more recent creation.

Peter

--
Peter Saint-Andre
Jabber Software Foundation
http://www.jabber.org/people/stpeter.php