[Patents] priorart.org no thank you

[phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)]

> > The 20th of March 2000 I invented an algorithm which can search
> > for solutions using probabilistic inference finding a set of
> > most likely solutions to a set of predefined goals in a huge data
> > sets of sparse information which changes over time.
> > --------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Due to the unlimited patentability of software in US I intend to
> > patent this algorithm there and I will patent it in all countries
> > where software patentability is allowed.
>
> Dear Roland
> To achieve one of your aims - not allow the others to patent your
> innovation - you don't have to patent yourself. It is enough to publish in
> good place. Look for Foresight Institute and IP.com initiative.
> http://www.foresight.org/priorart/index.html
> This will add your invention to the patent prior art database. If you don't
> believe in effectiveness you can publish only some modules. Look at the
> patent debate at Slashdot.
> http://slashdot.org/articles/01/03/21/139207.shtml

Here I might add:

Don't publish at priorart.org or ip.com but rather somewhere on Usenet.
Dejanews maintains a reasonably reliable documentation of what was posted
when.

It is much less of a hassle to post your ideas on Usenet, and it is not
important to put them into a form that makes prior-art search easy for
examiners. If someone else later gets a patent on your idea, you can
easily scare him away from using that patent against free software by
simply showing your publication.

Trying to make prior art more searchable is a task for the maintainers of
the patent system.  If they fail on that task, the free software community
benefits, because it in the best position to utilise the legal insecurity
caused by the unassessability of prior art.  It has thousands of
programmers who can work together to take revenge on some of those
companies that are nasty to free software by selectively making their
patent cardhouses fall down.

What we however need is more systems like Dejanews.  E.g. certified
time-stamping as a regular part of CVS servers and mailing list archives
and the like.  We are going to get there, step by step.

Initiatives like IP.com and Foresight INstitute seem highly cynical to
me.  Those patent professionals seem to believe that "opensource
programmers" are kind of idiots who do everything for free, even to the
degree of spending time and money (20$) for the sole purpose of

- having patent examiners confirm that their prior art is prior art
- strengthening the patent system
- removing the only weapon that the patent system offers to
  free software programmers for their self-defense

The only good thing about the IP.com scheme is that it doesn't work
anyway, no matter how hard they try.

-phm