isearch, LEAP and patents was: Re: Could Emacs be rewritten in Python?

[Alexander Schmolck]

usenet at rob.dqd.com (Rob Mayoff) writes:

> The LEAP patent (US patent 5,019,806) does not claim general
> incremental search.  
> It claims an incremental search mechanism where one key enables a forward
> search mode while the key is pressed, and a second key enables a backward
> search mode while the second key is pressed. In other words, it claims
> quasi-modal incremental search. Emacs doesn't have that.

Have you got a publically available reference at hand by any chance? I'd be
really curious to learn how the patent claim is justified.


'as