Kodak patents and SOAP

I just glanced at the first of the patents that Kodak acquired from Wang and 
is now trying to use against Sun/Java:

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='5206951'.WKU.&OS=PN/5206951&RS=PN/5206951

Or, if you prefer,

   http://makeashorterlink.com/?B24622F38

It strikes me that the language of the patent just describes object-oriented 
RPC, such as Java RMI, DCOM, CORBA, or SOAP.  The patent is from 1993, and 
CORBA predates that by a couple of years, so I don't think that Sun will 
have trouble finding prior art, if I've read the patent correctly.  I 
haven't glanced at the other two patents yet (perhaps they will be trickier).

Kodak tried for a couple of years to squeeze money from Sun privately over 
these before the thing ended up in court.  I guess that between hiring Tim 
Bray and deciding to fight these patents openly, Sun is putting its 
Microsoft blood money to good use.


All the best,


David