Thanks
Dave,
The
other advice I have for anyone commenting on this case is to
keep the argument simple.
There
are a lot of invention controversies along the lines of “Big
famous company X says that it invented technology Y in (date
2), but actually plucky inventor Z had previously come up
with the same technology in (date 1). Because date 1 is
earlier than date 2 we should remember plucky inventor Z as
the true inventor of Y, despite the PR and legal resources
of company X which denied him recognition.” That’s the
narrative that Ayyadurai is telling about himself, and
reporters are liable to turn it into an Ayyadurai vs.
Tomlinson contest. Discussion of such claims head in the
direction of debates on whether plucky inventor Z’s simple
prototype really counts as inventing the technology.
What’s
different about this case is that plucky inventor Z claims
to have invented email in either 1980 or, more recently, in
1978 (and has shown code snippets that appears to come from
1982). Whereas historians already knew that simple
electronic mail systems were in use at MIT in 1965, that
electronic mail was sent over what became the Internet in
1971, that spam was sent in 1978, that Xerox had a
recognizably modern GUI client by that time etc. So the
features of Ayyadurai’s system are not the important thing
in assessing his claim to be “the inventor of email.” I have
no reason to doubt that he produced a perfectly good local
email system. But Ayyadurai is only “the inventor of email”
if nothing done prior to 1978 (or 1980 or 1982) was email.
In other words, he’s trying to use the classic “plucky
suppressed inventor” narrative even though his date 1 is
many years later than the established date 2.
To
rebut this claim one doesn’t need to designate any
individual as THE inventor of email, merely to reiterate the
historical consensus that email is a synonym for electronic
mail and that electronic mail was in use prior to 1978 (or
1980 or 1982). However smart and likeable you are, you can’t
invent something that’s already been invented.
Best
wishes,
Tom
Maybe the document should be something
like a friend-of-court brief that is provided to the defense
attorney rather than a public document and the court if the
case ever goes to court. There is plenty of time for public
documents later. I would think that passing Tom's list
below to the defense attorney would already be useful.