PATENTS & LICENSES -- Covering Their Assets

BY MARK SMITH

A patent on the automation of prepress processes? Could such a fundamental and basic sounding concept really be patentable, and stand up to any challenges?

Patent #6,429,947—"Automated, hosted prepress application" is just one of the patents awarded so far this year to ImageX in Kirkland, WA. By mid-August, the company was reporting it had already received final approval for six of the more than 50 patents it claimed to have pending.