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Mike,<br>
<br>
I know of at least two companies that used this software to deliver
faxes via e-mail to national and international networks of users. It
was not a single PC receiving faxes into an inbox, it was incoming
faxes distributed to one or more e-mail addresses where the e-mail was
read nationally or internationally.<br>
<br>
I believe there were installations with more than 1 incoming fax modem,
but that's a factual issue that would have to be checked with the folks
who managed the installations.<br>
<br>
On a separate note, Apple also had a fax modem circa 1990. I built a
broadcast fax system that took a SCO box and a bank of serial ports and
did customized cover pages and content from MS Word doc e-mail to an
address (does anyone remember UUCP) and faxed to a list of people. I
can't for the life of me remember if I had incoming support on the
system as well. But this should cover the issues relating to e-mail to
an address for faxing. <br>
<br>
Remember also that you cannot patent the automation of a manual
process. That means that if I can do something by hand, you cannot get
a patent on merely having a machine follow the same steps. This was
one of the ways that a patent of real-time trading from a spreadsheet
was knocked out in Canada.<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
David<br>
<br>
Mike M wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid20050607232116.GI24646@edison" type="cite">
<pre wrap="">On Tue, Jun 07, 2005 at 03:49:00PM -0700, David Pollak wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Folks,
Black and White Software was selling software that monitored a fax modem
on NeXT computers and forwarded incoming faxes to e-mail addresses back
in 1992. If you need more information, I can dig up advertisements for
the product from NeXTWorld magazine. I used the product (and know other
who did as well.) It seems to be prior art to the fax via e-mail patents.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap=""><!---->
Read the patents carefully because the thing you describe above is for a
computer and not a national network. It is these minor modifications
that get patented. If you think of a major idea and some else improves
it in a minor way and patents the improvement, guess what?, you can't use the
improvement without the patent holder's permission. That'll chap you,
won't it?
</pre>
</blockquote>
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