From: alg@is.morgan.com (Al Guintu)
Newsgroups: comp.patents
Subject: Re: Preemptive patents/copyrights - alternate LPF strategy
Date: 7 Apr 92 06:46:48 GMT



in <4576@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>, i wrote:

Al> what i'm proposing is a way to ensure the access of
Al> research ideas that are in many cases the foundation on
Al> which corporate-owned patents are based.
            ...
Al> the point of my proposal is to allow the computing public
Al> to stake a (public) claim on their works.  the basic
Al> concepts embodied in research publications, freeware or
Al> p.d. software, etc, usually precede software patents
Al> granted for implementations of those concepts.  by
Al> providing a means of patenting or copyrighting software
Al> *for the computing public*, rightful access to these works
Al> is guaranteed.

    ..to which the moderator added:

Mod> [mod- Note that any publication by inventors is normally a
Mod> bar to future inventors attempting to patent the same
Mod> subject matter. This is on the grounds that any future
Mod> inventor will fail to satisfy the ground of novelty. ie
Mod> the later inventor has not produced anything that is
Mod> novel. Hence access to the works will be guaranteed anyway
Mod> so long as it has been effectively published.  ]

if things worked and were that simple, there would be *no dispute* 
as to the validity of certain patents, because all patents would 
neither infringe on any published work nor fail the test of 
novelty.

       *** NOT! ***

i cite the Dictionary speller (US4783761) patent as an
example, whereby a patent was granted in spite of the fact
that there was a *lot* of related public domain or
published prior art to be found.  the owners of the patent
surely knew this, and yet they proceeded with their patent
application.

in <4530@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>, nagle@netcom.com (John Nagle) wrote:
JN>  The impression I got when I read that was that the
JN>  applicant threw in a very general Claim 1, followed by
JN>  narrower claims, expecting PTO rejection of the first
JN>  claim.  But the PTO allowed it.  They [the PTO] probably had no
JN>  prior art on file relating to spelling checking, so they
JN>  had to.

in <4577@cluster.cs.su.oz.au>, webb+@CS.CMU.EDU (Jon Webb) wrote:
JW>  Yes, and that's exactly the scheme described by Knuth,
JW>  volume 3, page 486 (start from the top), 1973, as well as
JW>  many other sources. It's a good balance between time and
JW>  space. That's why it's so popular for storing
JW>  dictionaries.

in <RWK.92Mar30191050@taunton.crl.dec.com>, rwk@crl.dec.com (Bob Kerns) wrote:
Bob>  I agree.  But there's nothing novel here.  There are lots
Bob>  of things which only allow input of valid parses.  For
Bob>  example, when I wrote the ITS password program, I only
Bob>  allowed valid parses, beeping immediately if something
Bob>  didn't match its internal dictionary of commands.  


concerned individuals should wake up and realize that the real
world will only respect *legal* instruments such as patents and
copyrights.  it is a delusion to think that publication of prior
art is sufficient deterrence to patenting by another party.
the computing community is not immune from this sort of
dishonesty or greed.

all this talk about abolishing software patents, etc. does *nothing*
but waste network time and money.  it's an interesting idea, but
it will never happen.  to stem this erosion of programming rights,
a means to preemptive patent and release for public use, programs,
algorithms, and other computing-related processes should be pursued.  



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