It didn’t take long for Netscape Communications Corp and America Online Inc to rid themselves of the prospect of facing patent infringement lawsuits from Wang Global (nee Wang Laboratories Inc). On Wednesday federal Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Wang’s Videotex system at the heart of the proposed suit was generically and fundamentally different from web browser and other internet technologies (CI No 3,399). Wang had alleged that it had invented the ability to save web pages retrieved from a server using the ‘save as’ function; the concept of bookmarks; the practice of saving file extension then retrieving them based on that extension. The suit was actually filed last October but only came to light last week when Netscape solicited the help of its development community to find earlier examples of the technology than Wang’s – a concept known as prior art. Netscape said its response, including information from the developer community, persuaded the judge to reject Wang’s potential. Judge Brinkema said Wang’s Videotex was a closed and proprietary system that relied on a central database, which is not the model of the web.
