Patent holder eyes Web services players

CNET: “A patent held by a little-known programmer from New Jersey may complicate–at least temporarily–the grand
visions of Web services touted by titans such as IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

Charlie Northrup, the chief executive of software developer Global Technologies, holds one of the earliest patents that
describe how diverse computer systems can talk to servers connected to the Web and run software on multiple
platforms. Sound familiar? That’s just the kind of service Microsoft is pushing with its .Net strategy, a wide-ranging plan
for moving business computing applications such as calendars, word processors and e-mail onto the Web.”