> >
> > I'm pretty sure there's prior art.
>
> The oldest date seems to be 1994. I'd bet money somebody on this list
> can come up with some prior art. :-)
Well, I haven't done a heck of a lot of research, but from reading the
abstract, I suspect CMU's SUP protocol would invalidate the patent. We
were using it while I was there as an undergrad.
Steven Shafer and Mary Thompson, The SUP Software Upgrade Protocol
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs.cmu.edu/project/mach/public/sup/sup.ps
8 September 1989