RE: [VANILLA-LIST:3019] technical question

[Bob Campbell <rsc@scd.ucar.edu>]

> What I really need to do right now is send to the court a list of all the
> 'prior art' I will be using against the claim.  Is there anything you
> haven't told me about that could prove that Netrek is doing what's in the
> claim prior to 1995?  You gave me the location of the source code (
> ftp://ftp.netrek.org/pub/netrek/ ).  Is there any other source code, design
> documents, or instructions that I don't know about?

You know about 'netrek' and 'Xpilot', and we've mentioned 'bolo', but there's 
also 'xtank' and 'xfirepower' that use similar messaging systems, though
I don't know how relevent they'd be to you.

I think the TCP "aggregation" of data into as few packets as necessary has
you leading down the wrong path.  I haven't read the patent claim, but it
sounds as though this other messaging system isn't as time-critical as
say the netrek messaging system.  Netrek won't wait until it has several
messages on the server for a particular team, it'll send the message as
soon as it gets it.  IF it happens to come in at the same time as another
message to that team (not inconceivable), then they MIGHT get aggregated into
the same packet.  

So, I'd say you need to determine if the method described in the patent is
time-critical or number-of-messages critical.  Ask yourself, "Under the
patents design, this system broadcasts aggregated incoming messages when
X occurs."  'X' being either "when a certain number of messages have arrived"
or "as soon as a message arrives".  

If it's the latter, then you could probably use netrek as a counter.  If it's
the former, I would think a mailing-list system such as majordomo or listserv
would be more appropriate.

As far as source code goes, would a filesystem timestamp be sufficient?  I
may have an old, old copy of the source dating back to '93 or '94 on a tape
backup (or even in our MASStore system, since an admin here used to run a 
server).


Bob Campbell                    Unix System Administrator
Scientific Computing Division   National Center for Atmospheric Research
rsc@ucar.edu                    (303) 497-1815