Re: USPTO to license proprietary e-mail alternative from EPO

[PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>]

To make it even a little bit clearer:

> > Frankly I don't give a damn if it's not gnu-based, as long as it
> > works.
>
> If it works only with a closed-source windows client and does nothing that
> can't be done by simple and free internet solutions (such as mail, SOAP
> etc), then it is not state of the art.

...

> I wouldn't complain if the PTO used proprietary software to do some of
> these things.  It is not important what the PTO uses internally but
> what it forces upon its customers.  The PTO is a public monopoly, and
> therefore it should use open standards state-of-the-art procedures
> rather than spend lots of money just to poorly reinvent the wheel and lock
> its customers into proprietary interfaces which people don't want to use
> and for which programmers don't want to develop applications because such
> interfaces have no future.

The present EPO filing system seems to have no publicly defined interface
at all.  The EPO website specifies only that one must install a certain
proprietary client on a certain proprietary OS in order to be able to use
the EPO's services.  The problem again is not so much that the client and
the OS are proprietary but that they hide the interface so that nobody can
develop any alternative application for communicating with the EPO.  They
are doing this in spite of the fact that ready-to-use open standards such
as e-mail, openpgp, SOAP etc exist. Microsoft is often accused of lock-in
tactics, but even they wouldn't use the USPTO/EPO type of crude lock-in
solution.  After all they are software professionals and wouldn't dream of
doing such a laughable thing.

The SOAP protocol which I have been proposing was designed by Microsoft.
So I could also say, using your words:  "Frankly I don't give a damn about
whether it was created by St iGNUtius or the Great Satan, as long as it
gives people the freedom to find the best-suited forms of communication
with the patent office.

-- 
Hartmut Pilch, FFII & Eurolinux Alliance              tel. +49-89-12789608
Protecting Innovation against Patent Inflation       http://swpat.ffii.org/
120,000 signatures against software patents      http://www.noepatents.org/