[Patents] Re: Patents digest, Vol 1 #99 - 2 msgs

[cd_smith@ou.edu cd_smith@ou.edu]

On Sat, 20 Nov 1999 patents-admin@liberte.aful.org wrote:
> Excerpt from Kernel Traffic (http://kt.linuxcare.com/kt19991115_43.html):
> 
>        It would be interesting for someone to set up a www.priorart.org
>        web site, dedicated towards finding and exposing stupid USPTO
>        tricks; the problem is that it would be a legal lightening rod,
>        and it would have to be careful to disclaim that it was giving
>        anything that might be construed as legal advice, or inducements
>        to infringe patents (valid or otherwise); but just as a data
>        repository of data that might or might not be accurate.

Has anyone actually done this.  I had this same idea a few weeks ago, and
it's been on my TODO list since.  But I'd be interested in knowing if it
exists already.  If not, I could hack up something, with all relevant
diclaimers that Theodore T'so suggests.  If the site were there just to
provide a forum to expose the stupidity of patents, rather than to help
people overturn them, then I think the liability stuff can be avoided.
And then who's to say it can't be used for both?

Unless someone responds (preferably e-mail, since I'm subscribed digest to
this list), I'll start writing the CGI for it.  And I know a place where I
could get it hosted for free.

Chris Smith