quote:
A US District Court has agreed that the word 'card' means any 'flat, rectangular piece of stiff material', paving the way for intellectual property company E-Pass to pursue its claim that HP iPaqs running Microsoft software violate its patent for a "multi-function card".
Register readers may be more familiar with E-Pass' other action, against PalmOne. The legal tussle with Microsoft and HP - technically, against Compaq; the suite was filed before the merger - is a parallel one.
E-Pass claims the Microsoft's Pocket PC operating system violates patent number 5,276,311,which it administers on behalf of the inventor, Hartmut Hennige. The so-called '311 patent' essentially describes an electronic wallet used to hold credit card details securely on said multi-function card.
Like PalmOne before it - again, technically 3Com, since that suit was filed before the Palm IPO and the subsequent split into PalmOne and PalmSource - Microsoft argued that the word 'card' implied a specific range of sizes. And since Pocket PCs don't come in those sizes, such devices could not to be held to infringe the 311 patent.
The Register:
Judge denies MS attempt to re-define 'card'[ February 28, 2004: Message edited by: Anonymous Coward ]
