addes @staticethod decorator appropriatly

It seems for anything > Python2.4 @staticmethod is the correct term to tag static member functions. I'm reusing your code within a python 2.7 project and it seems that this version is more picky than Python 3.3 or 3.4 :-). Anyway, I think it would be a good thing to integrate this into the main branch. Let me know what you think!
Thanks, Chris