From phm@a2e.de  Fri Jun 29 17:37:53 2001
From: phm@a2e.de (PILCH Hartmut)
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 18:37:53 +0200 (CEST)
Subject: [Patents] are claims OR'ed or AND'ed?
In-Reply-To: <20010629161937.A1626@wonder>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.31.0106291831510.15482-100000@querty.oas.a2e.de>

> However, ffii.org is not universally regarded as a source of ultimate
> wisdom concerning patents, and I've just, in a private correspondence
> with someone rather well informed, been told that subsequent claims
> /refine/ eachother, so that, e.g.

>  http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/mupli/ep487110/claims.html

> is not as dangerous as I thought, prohibiting all computer assisted
> diagnosis, but only disallowing anything that fits /all/ claims.

It is too bad that those knowledgable in patent matters tend to use their
knowledge for deliberately fooling people.  This is also what most of the
patent professionals on this list are spending their time doing, and the
person you were talking to seems to be no exception.

It is better to read what patent lawyers write to their customers, e.g. if
you can read German, under

	http://www.patent.de/swp_d.htm

you find a great howto on how to get broad and trivial software patent
claims granted and an explanation on why this is a golden opportunity
offered by the patent offices and possible only in very few fields, one of
them being software.

--
Hartmut Pilch                                           http://phm.ffii.org/
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation	      http://swpat.ffii.org/
80000 signatures against software patents         http://www.noepatents.org/





