[cap-talk] Persistence as a cap value (was: Re: ...PLASH discussion)

[Jed Donnelley]

Regarding,

On 3/12/2008 10:23 AM, Jed Donnelley wrote:
 > ...Heh, perhaps this reference to a patent by our friends:

Name: Persistent distributed capabilities
Patent number: 6049838
Filing date: Jul 1, 1996
Issue date: Apr 11, 2000
Inventors: Mark S. Miller, Norman Hardy, E. Dean Tribble, Christopher T. Hibbert, Eric C. Hill
Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.

at: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6049838.html
also: http://www.google.com/patents?id=hhYEAAAAEBAJ&dq=6049838
 >
 > might be relevant to this discussion?

I'd be interested to hear from any of the above
participants what they feel US Patent 6049838
might contribute to this discussion.  I read
through the patent but I'm afraid that to me it
sounds like a bunch of abstractions for what
would otherwise be implementation details.

I'd be most interested to hear if anybody (particularly
the patent holders) feels this patent (assigned to
Sun Microsystems) would cause infringement problems
to anybody implementing a distributed capability
system (e.g. Webkeys?)?  I would also be interested
to hear, for the list, a little about what the
environment was like for that work with Sun
and what ultimately happened to the work (e.g.
were there implementations that are or are
not available)?  Did any of the mechanisms
from patent 6049838 show up in the E vat
mechanism?  Are there intellectual property
issues there?

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed/