On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:53:35 -0700
"Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen(_at_)rosenlaw(_dot_)com> wrote:
Steven Bellovin wrote:
We've all seen far too many really bad
patents issued, ones where prior art is legion. The (U.S.) patent
office seems to do a far better job of searching its own databases
than it does the technical literature.
I know there are many philosophical reasons why many people oppose
software patents. But for others, there are very practical reasons:
there are too many bad patents issued. I think we can all agree
that stopping bad patents is a worthwhile goal, even if for some
it's just an intermediate goal.
The times they are a-changin'. [1]
Yup, I remember it from when it was new....
Please take a look at what's happening at
http://dotank.nyls.edu/communitypatent/. This is a GREAT place for the
technical experts in IETF to become involved in busting bad patents
before they are issued.
You raise an interesting point. Some years ago, the conventional
wisdom was that it was a bad idea to oppose patents at that point,
since any prior art introduced at that point were considered known by
the patent office, and hence not usable to challenge the patent later.
Objections based on such papers are reflected in the file wrapper, but
not always in the language of the specification or the claims. In my
experience, concessions by the applicant reflected there are not always
understood by judges and/or juries.
After patents are issued, busting them nowadays is also easier than
it used to be if we can present prior art to support reexamination by
the PTO. Take a look at what's happening at http://www.pubpat.org/.
Does it actually work in practice, when someone has filed a
(preposterous) infringement suit and each side is hiring expensive
experts? (Re-examination didn't seem to work for RIM.)
--Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb
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