Marimba Inc has been granted a patent related to its Castanet net-based software delivery and management suite and has another five pending, the company says. The patent is entitled, Method for distribution of code and data updates, and as the name suggests, covers the updating technology in Castanet.
It’s interesting that the Novadigm Inc 1996 patent at the heart of a patent infringement lawsuit against Marimba is referenced by the new Marimba patent. Marimba’s VP engineering Rob Currie says that means the US Patent & Trademark Office has reviewed it, along with all the other referenced documents and has decided that the new patent is sufficiently different from Novadigm’s.
Nobody at Novadigm got back to us by press time, but we expect to hear more about what is a potentially very damaging case for whoever loses. Currie declined to interpret the meaning of the patent beyond the text and abstract of the document. The patent was originally filed in July 1996.
