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Please be apprised of the following Legal Notices:
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A) The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has
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ruled that the Netscape Navigator code does not infringe Wang's U.S.
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Patent No. 4,751,669 ("the '669 Patent") because: 1) HTML is not
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Videotex as defined by the '669 patent; 2) web servers are not central
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suppliers; and 3) Navigator does not "connect," as defined by the '669
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Patent, to web servers on the Internet. Wang may appeal this decision to
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the Federal Circuit. Wang contended that its Patent disclosing a
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"Videotex" system, is infringed by the following functionality in the
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Netscape Navigator code: 1) the animated logo and status line indicators
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--See Claims 1,8 and 9; 2) the "File Save As" function --See Claims
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23-27; 3) Bookmarks and Rename Bookmarks in the Properties window --See
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Claims 20-22; 4) storing HTML, GIF, and JPEG files and adding filename
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extensions --See Claim 38
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B) Intermind owns pending U.S. patent applications on communications
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systems which employ metadata ("channel objects") to define a control
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structure for information transfer. The Netscape code does not infringe
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as released; however, modifications which utilize channel objects as
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described by Intermind should be considered carefully. The following is
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a statement from Intermind: "Intermind's claims fundamentally involve
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the use of a control structure to automate communications. ...The
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essence of Intermind's top claim is that two devices sender and receiver
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have persistent storage, communicate over a network, and exchange a
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control structure including metadata which describes: 1) what
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information is to be updated, 2) when to update this information, and 3)
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how to transfer the updated information. In addition, at least the
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receiving device must be able to process the metadata in order to
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perform the update determination and transfer. Any digital
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communications system which incorporates all of these elements will be
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covered by Intermind's patents." See Intermind.com.
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C) Stac, Inc., and its licensing agent Hi/fn, own several patents which
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disclose data compression methods implementing an LZS compression
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algorithm, including U.S. Patent Nos. 4,701,745 and 5,016, 009 ("the
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Stac Patents"). The Netscape Communicator code does not perform
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compression. If you modify the Netscape source code to perform
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compression, please take notice of the Stac Patents.
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D) Netscape Communications Corporation ("Netscape") does not guarantee
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that any source code or executable code available from the mozilla.org
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domain is Year 2000 compliant.