Insignia Software Inc believes there’s enough unique technology within its Jene ‘clean room’ Java for embedded systems implementation that it has the grounds to apply for patents at the UK Patent Office to protect it. Insignia, which has its UK headquarters in High Wycombe, Bucks, and a Californian base in Fremont, says the patent filings relate both to Jene and to its EVM Embedded Virtual Machine. Jene includes concurrent garbage collection and adaptive optimizing dynamic compilation technology that, says Insignia, gives it a small memory footprint, fast execution and predictable behavior. Others, including Hewlett-Packard Co and Sun Microsystems Inc, either have or are working on similar technology. But Insignia says it has now settled any arguments with Sun over its Java implementation through a December 7 memorandum of understanding, which apparently paves the way for expanded cooperation and certification between the two over Insignia’s Java technologies. Jene and EVM, first launched last month (CI No 3,533), is currently in beta test and is due to become commercially available in the first quarter of next year. Insignia isn’t naming the testers, but says they include developers of embedded devices ranging from networking equipment, PDAs and mass storage systems to color printers.
