Barbie's journal, via Ovid, made me aware of patent EP1170667 "Software Package Verification" granted last month in the EU. http://gauss.ffii.org/PatentView/EP1170667
It appears to patent basic software testing frameworks. There is a nine month window to oppose this patent. I believe Test::Harness constitutes prior art but IANAL. I would like to speak with a lawyer. Does anyone happen to know an EU patent attorney who is willing to do a little pro bono work? At this point I only want an educated reading of the patent to determine if Test::Harness may be prior art. I've contacted the EFF's staff attorney about this but he's not familiar with EU patent laws and recommended I find someone who is. I've also attempted to contact the Inventors listed on the patent (valid email addresses are difficult to find these days) in the hopes of discussing this programmer-to-programmer and cut through the legal BS. Haven't heard back yet. Here is my figuring on how Test::Harness is prior art: It includes the control (Test::Harness), framework (Test.pm, Test::More, etc..) and modules (*.t files) as outlined in claim 1. It can handle many test files (claim 2). It has the ability to order the execution of test files based on the filename which serves as a priority (claims 3 and 4). It has means to indicate if a given module is active or inactive (claim 5, 6 and 7) by the module issuing a "skip" flag. http://search.cpan.org/dist/Test-Harness/lib/Test/Harness/TAP.pod#Skipping_tests Test modules are typically stored as individual files, usually ending in .t, in a directory, usually t/ (claim 8). Test::Harness can be told the order in which tests are to be run. MakeMaker specifically runs test files in alphabetical order by filename (claims 9, 10, 11, 12). Test::Harness only recently added support for non-file based testing but JUnit and the Smalltalk testing frameworks handle tests in software objects (claim 13). The rest of the claims appear to repeat 1-13 in legalese. -- Michael G Schwern [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pobox.com/~schwern Just call me 'Moron Sugar'. http://www.somethingpositive.net/sp05182002.shtml
