[Patents] How to prevent a patent

[PILCH Hartmut phm@a2e.de]

> Do you know for a fact that publishing an idea on this email list would
> prevent others from applying for a patent on that idea in the furture?

Greg just responded exhaustively to this question.

> If so, would it be possible for us to publish any business process idea on
> this list and prevent grubby companies such as Amazon.com from patenting
> them?

Better not clobber this list with grubby business ideas of the kind that
are awarded patents by patent offices.

If we want to engage in this game, better employ some guerilla tactic.
E.g. publish the ideas in some time stamped archive which will be taken
off the net and placed with excruciatingly correct time-stamps into
various village libraries somewhere in Fireland, Siberia or Papa New
Guinea, with a copy of course being held in our hands, selectively used to
harrass some companies that behave unfriendly toward open source software.

-phm