SpotON3D responds to patent concerns, will license plugin to other grids

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Press Release: Official Statement from SpotON3D’s CEO Stevan Lieberman, regarding our Facebook® plugin

The US Constitution established patents to promote commerce in order to permit companies a monopoly on an idea for a limited time, allowing companies to invest in ideas and possibly reap a profit from their investment before the idea is given to the world. As SpotON3D’s investor, I have provided a substantial amount of money into the SpotON3D project, much of which includes development of the plugin being discussed. If a patent is granted on the plugin, SpotON3D will enforce its IP rights. Currently SpotON3D ’s patent is private as it has not yet been published. In due course, the US Patent office will examine the patent and either allow it to issue or possibly issue an office action rejection, to which we will respond.

It has been argued by some in the community that software released a number of years ago worked in the same fashion as the SpotON3D’s plugin. We do not believe this to be true. SpotON3D is not attempting to patent the concept of a 3D world in a Web window. We have filed for a patent on a specific technology which is a method to do this. This technology works for multiple types of applications and is not limited to 3D environments. Our research reveals that previous releases of technology which placed a 3D environment in a web-window, used a method which, although did look very similar, had disadvantages. This might be the reason why it is no longer available on the market. The concept of a “child window” has been patented a number of time and we believe our current method is unique and non-obvious.

SpotON3D has every intention of licensing the plugin software to any grid that wishes to use it. Currently we are allowing the community to use the plugin, with the ability to go to any grid, while it is still in beta. However, eventually we will need to charge a licensing fee based on a sliding scale to those grid owners that show an interest. The sliding scale will allow those with less money to have as much access as those with more. This is necessary to fund further development of the metaverse.

SpotON3D’s goal from the very beginning has been to improve the metaverse. As such, we have diligently worked hard to prevent copybotting, thus engendering a respect for a creator’s intellectual property rights, and have worked hard to create technology which realizes the potential of the 3D grid, including establishing a stable grid which all can enjoy.

It has been argued by the owner of Kitely that the SpotON3D plugin has to be given back to the community because the browser is installed at the same time as the plugin, thus it is essentially the same software. In essence, Kitely’s owner argues that SpotON3D’s plugin is a derivative work of the open source browser. Kitely’s owner is incorrect.

“The primary indication of whether a new program is a derivative work is whether the source code of the original program was used, modified, translated or otherwise changed in any way to create the new program. If not, then I would argue that it is not a derivative work.”

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366 .

I would urge everyone to read Mr. Rosen’s full article as he explains the issues quite well.

It has also been suggested that SpotON3D has not given back to the open source community and that what SpotON3D is doing is diametrically opposed to the open source movement. The truth is no one can legally submit the code to the Open Sim project if they are currently viewing the GPL client. OpenSimulator’s structural change to an official non-profit organization under the name Overte Foundation should release SpotON3D and others from this restriction, but until this reorganization process is completed the current licensee rules still must be followed.

As a final note, I find it curious that the community somehow believes that our hard work as a threat. We are doing our best to expand the user base of the 3D community, something that will help the entire community.

Respectfully,
Stevan Lieberman
CEO, Spoton3d

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For more information about this topic, or about SpotOn3D in general,

please feel free to contact us. Our team is most happy to answer any of your inquiries.

(info@spoton3d.com)

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