[8539] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Multimedia has been patented
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Craig A. Finseth)
Mon Nov 22 11:40:09 1993
Date: Mon, 22 Nov 1993 10:38:59 -0600
From: "Craig A. Finseth" <fin@unet.umn.edu>
To: tenney@netcom.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
In-Reply-To: Glenn S. Tenney's message of Sat, 20 Nov 1993 22:45:57 -0800 <199311210646.WAA21197@mail.netcom.com>
Reply-To: Craig.A.Finseth-1@umn.edu
...
There is a significant technical library at the PTO. They search much more
than just prior patent applications (internationally when possible).
However, if publications are not in their library, then they might not find
it. Their library subscribes to many journals and some companies send
their journals of R&D and disclosure journals to the library.
...
But you don't mention a USENET News feed, regular scans of FTP sites,
use of Gopher or Archie. Remember that in the Computer Science field,
by the time anything makes it into print, it's so old as to be
worthless (by people in the field, not for historical purposes).
None of the 1500 Internet RFCs have appeared in any publications of
record. Does that mean that if I were to attempt to patent TCP, I
could say that there was no previous publication history? There are
gigabytyes of papers, notes, articles, and other information out
there, all relevant to the field, and none of it will ever make it to
a traditional journal.
I stay current in the field, yet read _no_ traditional journals.
I would have a lot more confidence in the patent system if people were
saying things like "the examiners have full Internet access and do
extensive Gopher, WAIS, etc. searches in addition to looking at
journals."
Paper is not irrelevant. I see more paper being used than ever
before. Just not for anything important to me.
Craig A. Finseth Craig.A.Finseth-1@umn.edu
University Networking Services fin@unet.umn.edu
University of Minnesota +1 612 624 3375 desk
130 Lind Hall +1 612 625 0006 problems
207 Church St SE +1 612 626 1002 fax
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