Slashdot Mirror

... a gravitational wave generator patented by the NSA. I guess reverse engineering all those UFOs paid off.

[ObDisclaimerForTheClueless: No, I don't really believe they reverse engineered UFOs. The patent's real though. Who knows, it might even work.]

They claim to have patented this method... So if you search for 'blacklight' in the US Patent Office Database you get this.

As happy as I would be to believe in ultimate and clean renewable energy, it turns out Blacklight Power Inc. is more interested in things as 'rear view mirrors' and ' Liquid crystal display devices' than quantum mechanics.

Yes, if you keep clicking on the links from blog to blog, you will find the actual patent links.

It would be helpful if submitters included such links directly rather than sending all the interested /. readers on a wlid goose chase.

Yes, if you keep clicking on the links from blog to blog, you will find the actual patent links.

It would be helpful if submitters included such links directly rather than sending all the interested /. readers on a wlid goose chase.

Yes, if you keep clicking on the links from blog to blog, you will find the actual patent links.

It would be helpful if submitters included such links directly rather than sending all the interested /. readers on a wlid goose chase.

Since filing a patent is evil, Google has violated its "do no evil" policy.

Queue someone claiming that it's a defensive patent, and Google is just using the system to defend themselves. Of course that sort of claim is pure nonsense.

Anyways, it's hardly new - Google has been using the patent system since they first hit the scene with PageRank.

He has two applications pending.
Modulation compression method for the radio frequency transmission of high speed data
Tri-state integer cycle modulation
Can anyone summarize and/or give an informed opinion of them?

He has two applications pending.
Modulation compression method for the radio frequency transmission of high speed data
Tri-state integer cycle modulation
Can anyone summarize and/or give an informed opinion of them?

I know you mean well and your essential point (that the sky is not falling) is correct. But there are essential mis-statements regarding the patent system in your post that tend to fuel the hysteria of slashdotters. I want to throw my 2 cents in to correct them:

1. There is NO SUCH THING as a "provisional patent." A provisional patent APPLICATION simply gives the applicant to the ability to file a non-provisional (i.e., "real") patent application within 1 year and claim the benefit of the early filing daye of the provisional with respect to prior art. NO OTHER RIGHTS are conveyed by a provisional patent application. Therefore, a provisional patent application is not "enforceable" against anyone or anything. As you ponted out, provisional patent applications are NEVER examined. They simply sit in a file.

2. The application that just published and is the subject of this thread is not a provisional application. It is a non-provisional application that doesn't make any reference whatsoever to a provisional application. It is easy to know this because provisional applications are never published. I don't know where people got sidetracked into talking about provisional rights but they do not apply to this application.

Now, as many have said before, the USPTO has very little latitude in just dimissing out of hand an application before it gets examined. Therefore, the mere fact that this is being published is nothing to be alarmed about. You can track the status of this application from the USPTO website (http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair) and I can see that this application was only docketed last month. My experience is that it will be at least 6 months (but probably more like 12) before this is even examined. I would wait until then to get alarmed if it looks like a patent will issue.

As for what rights the publication give the applicant, the answer is easy, none. True, the applicant can wave his arms and say that he has a patent pending and threaten to sue WHEN AND IF the patent issues. But he could have done that from the day after he filed his application. The application is withheld from publication for 18 months only for the applicant's benefit and protection. He could have made the application public long ago and inf fact requested the USPTO to publish it early.

The only benefit to the applicant from publication is that he can begin accruing damages form the date his application became publicly know. However, the damages would be recoverable if, and only if, (1) the applicant gives specific notice to the accused infringers (this explains ther cease and desist letters), (2) the patent issues with claims substantially identical to those published. The second requirement is rarely ever true. As I said before, the appplicant did not have to wait until publication to make his application publicly known. So nothing has been gained by publication (except additional publicity and slashdot hysteria)

For what its worth, I think this patent will be rejected because it consitutes non-patentable subject matter. That is, although it is couched as a "process" (statutorily patentable), it realy is an abstract idea (statutorily non-patentable).

This guy seems serious. Now let's just hope the USPTO realizes the stupidity of allowing even an application for this sort of patent. Stories have been around since the beginnings of humanity. Patenting the ideas behind them would be like patenting speech itself.

I still can't believe this. It's like something out of The Onion.

Yeah, the usual slashborgs are going ballistic.

Since the application has only been published, one should inquire as to what its status is.

If you click on the "Transaction History" tab and scan the entries (Listed in descending date) you will see that the application has been assigned to an examiner, but has not received an action on the merits, as least as of the date the database has been updated. Also, calling this a "Provisional Patent" is simply incorrect; there are Provisional Patent Applications, but they never receive an examination until they are converted to a full regular application; they are used solely to preserve an effective filing date.

The matter of the inventor, Knight, asserting any rights sounds like a bunch of self-promoting puffery; having a pending application confers no rights at all; of course, if any claims have been allowed it would serve some sort of notice to the public what might be comming, but no rights can be be enforced until the patent is actually granted by issue.

The search for the application data seems to show that Knight is, indeed, a rocket scientist, although I didn't research the other applications/patents to see if they are for real or if this guy is just a "Gyro Gearloose" nutcase. In any event, I wonder if he really thinks he will be the pioneer of a whole new class of patentable subject matter or if he's just trying to make a point about how absurdly 35 USC 101 can be stretched. All bets are off if this ever makes it through the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

Yeah, the usual slashborgs are going ballistic.

Since the application has only been published, one should inquire as to what its status is.

If you click on the "Transaction History" tab and scan the entries (Listed in descending date) you will see that the application has been assigned to an examiner, but has not received an action on the merits, as least as of the date the database has been updated. Also, calling this a "Provisional Patent" is simply incorrect; there are Provisional Patent Applications, but they never receive an examination until they are converted to a full regular application; they are used solely to preserve an effective filing date.

The matter of the inventor, Knight, asserting any rights sounds like a bunch of self-promoting puffery; having a pending application confers no rights at all; of course, if any claims have been allowed it would serve some sort of notice to the public what might be comming, but no rights can be be enforced until the patent is actually granted by issue.

The search for the application data seems to show that Knight is, indeed, a rocket scientist, although I didn't research the other applications/patents to see if they are for real or if this guy is just a "Gyro Gearloose" nutcase. In any event, I wonder if he really thinks he will be the pioneer of a whole new class of patentable subject matter or if he's just trying to make a point about how absurdly 35 USC 101 can be stretched. All bets are off if this ever makes it through the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.

(Just posted this on another site, but it should be here as well:)

And here's the patent application:

The relevant parts:

I claim:

1. A process of relaying a story having a timeline and a unique plot involving characters, comprising: indicating a character's desire at a first time in said timeline for at least one of the following: a) to remain asleep or unconscious until a particular event occurs; and b) to forget or be substantially unable to recall substantially all events during the time period from said first time until a particular event occurs; indicating said character's substantial inability at a time after said occurrence of said particular event to recall substantially all events during the time period from said first time to said occurrence of said particular event; and indicating that during said time period said character was an active participant in a plurality of events.

OK, so this claim covers all stories which involve characters that wish to sleep until something happens, apparently achieving this wish, and then discovering that they were awake but don't remember everything that happened in the meantime.

Typical practice in patent applications is to put something very broad in the first claim in the hopes that it will be granted, but not to actually expect it to be enforceable because the chances are somebody has done something similar before. (If anybody can name stories that follow this structure, published before Nov 28, 2003, now is the time to tell the USPTO about it).

2. A process of relaying a story as in claim 1, comprising: indicating that said particular event has occurred at a second time in said timeline at least one week after said first time; and indicating said character's substantial inability at a time after said second time to recall substantially all events during the time period from said first time to said second time.

Claim 2 is the same story where the event waited for takes at least a week to occur, and everything that happened is forgotten about.

3. A process of relaying a story as in claim 2, wherein said second time is at least one year after said first time.

The same, except a year or more elapses.

4. A process of relaying a story as in claim 1, wherein said particular event is at least one of: a passing of a particular amount of time; a notification of a decision; and a relief of a pain.

5. A process of relaying a story as in claim 1, wherein said plurality of events comprises at least one of said character's wedding, a birth of a child of said character, and performance of said character's occupation for a substantial portion of said time period.

Things a character might wait for and things that might happen during the wait.

6. A process of relaying a story as in claim 1, further comprising indicating a belief held by at least three other characters that said character was conscious during said active participation in said plurality of events.

Something that's likely to happen after the character 'wakes up'.

7. A process of relaying a story as in claim 1, wherein each of said steps of indicating comprises indicating in a written form.

8. A process of relaying a story as in claim 1, wherein each of said steps of indicating comprises indicating in a video form.

Books, TV series and films are covered.

9. A process of relaying a story as in claim 8, wherein said process is a process of displaying a motion picture having a timeline and a unique plot, comprising: displaying a video representation of an actor acting as said character; displaying a video representation of said actor indicating at said first time in said timeline a desire for said at l

Hopefully someone will patent reality TV shows. I am rather sick of those.

Uri Geller has already patented one of those.

Sorry, it didn't really help.

Um, please be sure to read the links that you use as rebuttal. For example, in the first paragraph of the USPTO link, it says:

"Under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. 119(e), the corresponding non-provisional application would benefit in three ways: (1) patentability would be evaluated as though filed on the earlier provisional application filing date, (2) the resulting publication or patent would be treated as a reference under 35 U.S.C. 102(e) as of the earlier provisional application filing date, and (3) the twenty-year patent term would be measured from the later non-provisional application filing date."

Note that the term of the patent starts running from the time of filing of the non-provisional application. Note also that the page never uses the term provisional patent. That's because there is no such thing. Your link to the patent FAQ says that very thing in its first question.

Thank you for the link to Peter Zura's page, as well as the link to the published application. Mr. Zura's page does confirm what I said about this just being a press release. You all are giving the idiot who filed exactly the publicity he was looking for.

Now, I'm not saying there aren't flaws in the system. The Lundgren case on business method patents seems like a stretch, for example. (Sorry, I'm a little tired to go looking for a link right now. I believe it was mentioned on Slashdot a couple weeks ago.) However, this situation isn't an example of those flaws yet. The USPTO hasn't looked at the application yet, so we don't know whether they'll grant it or not. I'm betting on not. Regardless, it will be several years before this is resolved.

Thank you also for the links to the two blogs. I've seen a lot of complaints about the patent system on Slashdot over the years, but few suggestions on how to improve it. Maybe the blogs will have something useful in that area.

For more information on publication of applications, check out 35 U.S.C. 122:
http://uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/ap pxl_35_U_S_C_122.htm

In a nutshell, it says that applications are made public 18 months after they're received by the USPTO. This doesn't apply to provisional applications.

1. US Patent Application 20050244804

2. USPTO explanation of provisional patents

3. FAQ about provisional patents

4. This is also being covered at Peter Zura's Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog (Peter Zura "is a registered patent attorney practicing in the Chicago area. He is a former patent examiner and has considerable experience in patent litigation and patent portfolio development and management.")

In short, the provisional patent application becomes enforceable as of the publication date, if the patent is eventually awarded. This is why "According to the official Patent Office website, provisional rights 'provide a patentee with the opportunity to obtain a reasonable royalty from a third party that infringes a published application claim provided actual notice is given to the third party by [the] applicant, and a patent issues from the application with a substantially identical claim.'"

In other words, you could infringe this provisional patent if you wanted, even after being notified by Mr. Knight, but if he is successful, you will owe him royalties.

I hope this doesn't make sense to you -- because it doesn't. We are laboring under an extremely broken system which, rather than rewarding innovation, rewards monopoly stagnation and locking up ideas from the public.

You really should get involved in the fight against this nonsense. Right to Create and freeculture are good places to start.

1. US Patent Application 20050244804

2. USPTO explanation of provisional patents

3. FAQ about provisional patents

4. This is also being covered at Peter Zura's Two-Seventy-One Patent Blog (Peter Zura "is a registered patent attorney practicing in the Chicago area. He is a former patent examiner and has considerable experience in patent litigation and patent portfolio development and management.")

In short, the provisional patent application becomes enforceable as of the publication date, if the patent is eventually awarded. This is why "According to the official Patent Office website, provisional rights 'provide a patentee with the opportunity to obtain a reasonable royalty from a third party that infringes a published application claim provided actual notice is given to the third party by [the] applicant, and a patent issues from the application with a substantially identical claim.'"

In other words, you could infringe this provisional patent if you wanted, even after being notified by Mr. Knight, but if he is successful, you will owe him royalties.

I hope this doesn't make sense to you -- because it doesn't. We are laboring under an extremely broken system which, rather than rewarding innovation, rewards monopoly stagnation and locking up ideas from the public.

You really should get involved in the fight against this nonsense. Right to Create and freeculture are good places to start.

Please see the "Features" section of the USPTO explanation of provisional patents: "enables immediate commercial promotion of the invention with greater security against having the invention stolen."

Of course, any 'infringers' of this patent could ignore the cease-and-desist letters sent out by Mr. Knight, but they'd be doing so at great risk, as those actions would be actionable once the patent is awarded.

Does this make any sense? Of course not. But that's our patent system for you.

This patent on the comb-over is my personal favourite.

To go with my other patent, check out class 426 over at the USPTO. So this isn't that odd of an occurence to patent food and beverages if there is a whole class for it. Also another note from my sibling post, a trade secret provides nearly the same legal protection as a patent in many cases, so long as the company takes great effort to maintain said secret. In this case Coca-Cola would be able to sue just about anyone selling a cola product with the exact (and possibly very similar) recipe as their own since they can claim they stole a trade secret. With a patent, it would have run out by now (Coca-cola has been around more then 20 years) and there would be the possibility of hundreds of generic Coca-Cola products which could have the exact same recipe...disclosure is key to why patents are good.

Maybe it's just that I can't read legalese.

Looks a bit like this:

United States Patent 6,017,302

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm &r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=6017302.WKU.&OS=PN/6017302&RS=PN/ 6017302/

Some analysis and context is usually beneficial to all. I've seen other commenters say that they haven't seen the original patent. I always find it helpful to read as many original source documents as possible although it's obvious that some people don't agree that it's important or useful information.

2005-10-31 21:45:58 Supreme Court Rejects Microsoft IE Patent Appeal (Index,Microsoft) (rejected)

Reuters reports (via eWEEK) that the US Supreme Court declined to hear Microsoft's appeal of a 2003 $521 million patent infringement ruling. A lower court previously ruled that the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser had infringed on technology developed by Eolas Technologies and the University of California for embedding, invoking and downloading plug-ins and applets. eWEEK's Ben Charny writes about how 'an adverse court ruling ultimately forces changes upon Internet Explorer'. You can read the patent in dispute, Patent No. 5,838,906 'Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document' at the USPTO site.

I am a patent attorney. I am posting this anonymously because, frankly, I enjoy earning a living and I accept business from corporate clients. If you believe that my anonymity is hypocritical, then you're perfectly free to feed your own children lightly cooked dirt, but I'm comfortable with the cognitive dissonance.

Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them.

Scary as it is, the word "gullible" is not defined in the Oxford English dictionary.

.
.
.

Or maybe it is. My point being, someone has recited this story, and you're one of those sheep that continues to make the mistake of believing it.

35 U.S.C. sec 102 and sec 103 provide that ANY "printed publication" can serve as prior art that renders a proposed claim unpatentable due to a lack of novelty or a lack of non-obviousness. Therefore, you do not need to obtain a "defensive patent" to prevent a competitor from patenting that same subject matter. You merely need to publicly disclose that subject matter.

Even if you believe that this is not sufficient, because the USPTO is just that incompetent (only an examiner has the qualifications to judge this, since your elected representatives created the laws and regulations that dictate how they must perform their jobs), you can prepare and file a patent application as a Statutory Invention Registration, which is published, indexed, and catalogued just like a patent, but which cannot be used offensively like a patent, and which notably does not require the additional attorney fees and government fees associated with patent prosecution, issuance, and maintenance. There is no rational reason not to publish your software idea, or to file an SIR disclosing your idea, unless you are after one thing:

Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them.

Now, disregard the bold text to read the actual story.

I am a patent attorney. I am posting this anonymously because, frankly, I enjoy earning a living and I accept business from corporate clients. If you believe that my anonymity is hypocritical, then you're perfectly free to feed your own children lightly cooked dirt, but I'm comfortable with the cognitive dissonance.

Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them.

Scary as it is, the word "gullible" is not defined in the Oxford English dictionary.

.
.
.

Or maybe it is. My point being, someone has recited this story, and you're one of those sheep that continues to make the mistake of believing it.

35 U.S.C. sec 102 and sec 103 provide that ANY "printed publication" can serve as prior art that renders a proposed claim unpatentable due to a lack of novelty or a lack of non-obviousness. Therefore, you do not need to obtain a "defensive patent" to prevent a competitor from patenting that same subject matter. You merely need to publicly disclose that subject matter.

Even if you believe that this is not sufficient, because the USPTO is just that incompetent (only an examiner has the qualifications to judge this, since your elected representatives created the laws and regulations that dictate how they must perform their jobs), you can prepare and file a patent application as a Statutory Invention Registration, which is published, indexed, and catalogued just like a patent, but which cannot be used offensively like a patent, and which notably does not require the additional attorney fees and government fees associated with patent prosecution, issuance, and maintenance. There is no rational reason not to publish your software idea, or to file an SIR disclosing your idea, unless you are after one thing:

Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them.

Now, disregard the bold text to read the actual story.

I am a patent attorney. I am posting this anonymously because, frankly, I enjoy earning a living and I accept business from corporate clients. If you believe that my anonymity is hypocritical, then you're perfectly free to feed your own children lightly cooked dirt, but I'm comfortable with the cognitive dissonance.

Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them.

Scary as it is, the word "gullible" is not defined in the Oxford English dictionary.

.
.
.

Or maybe it is. My point being, someone has recited this story, and you're one of those sheep that continues to make the mistake of believing it.

35 U.S.C. sec 102 and sec 103 provide that ANY "printed publication" can serve as prior art that renders a proposed claim unpatentable due to a lack of novelty or a lack of non-obviousness. Therefore, you do not need to obtain a "defensive patent" to prevent a competitor from patenting that same subject matter. You merely need to publicly disclose that subject matter.

Even if you believe that this is not sufficient, because the USPTO is just that incompetent (only an examiner has the qualifications to judge this, since your elected representatives created the laws and regulations that dictate how they must perform their jobs), you can prepare and file a patent application as a Statutory Invention Registration, which is published, indexed, and catalogued just like a patent, but which cannot be used offensively like a patent, and which notably does not require the additional attorney fees and government fees associated with patent prosecution, issuance, and maintenance. There is no rational reason not to publish your software idea, or to file an SIR disclosing your idea, unless you are after one thing:

Scary as it is, Microsoft and other large software companies have patented software ideas and algorithms in order to make sure that no other company would go and patent the same idea and use it against them.

Now, disregard the bold text to read the actual story.

I have a fire starter made by Doan Mach & Equip Co. Inc Euclid OH
http://www.1sks.com/store/doan-usgi-magnesium-fire starting-tool.html
NSN 4240-01-160-5618
FSCM 6251 MFR/PN 8702
FIRE STARTING TOOL
MAGNESIUM
U.S. PATENT NO. 4,188,192
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/search-bool.html&r =8&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=ptxt&s1=4,188,192&OS=4,188,1 92&RS=4,188,192

This will set most anything on fire in a controlled manner. I keep one on my keychain and have for over 10 years. I was challenged that the magnesium would ignite or spark if put on a grinder and it didn't even spark and as the metal is removed it pulled enough heat away to keep the bar cool. The 'flint' side however creates spectacular sparks with a grinder and adequate ones with a knife.

This will start wet paper or wood easily.

Accoding to this, yes, it looks like inventors are entitled to compensation if a secrecy order is placed on their patent.

Easy - they just use the compression method disclosed in US Patent 5,533,051.. It can apparently compress arbitrary random data, including encrypted and compressed data! :p

--
"Shannon was a fool." -- David C. James

Even at 100GHz, the wavelength of microwaves is 3 mm. But sound waves inside a room would cause a surface to vibrate perhaps 0.001 mm. You cant modulate a 3mm wave to record 0.001 mm changes.

This explains why Microsoft would need to pay royalties. Even LAME is not exempt (at least in Germany & the USA) - the whole reason for its original name ("LAME Ain't an Mp3 Encoder") is to help avoid the patent issues around mp3 encoding.

Get the full text of the first three from Dean and read them - or not, but they contain the information relevant to point a, and references relevant to point b, I'll let you judge his conclusions for yourself.

Even if I did that, why would I want conclusions for irrelevent articles? I've looked over the text of 4 out of 6, none of them cover the amount of public research that went into use with private drug research.

You said you wanted an example for blood pressure, and there it is.

Of a drug that wasn't in the top 200 list, which I specifically requested.

You never actually asked for an example for neurotensin (you asked the other guy), you just asserted that it was developed without any academic help, and since I don't know anything about chronic pain (I do know about blood pressure),

Neurontin, not neurotensin. Yes, I asked for evidence regarding Valium, but you provided none. Valium was a result of many failed experiments in completely new compounds with completely unknown effects. In fact, Leo Sternbach is credited with inventing benzodiazapines, the class of drugs it's in, meaning that there WAS NO prior research on those types of drugs.

See: http://www.benzo.org.uk/librium.htm , http://www.benzo.org.uk/valium2.htm

I can't cite anything for Neurontin, I'm going based on what a pain specialist (MD) has said regarding Neurontin (gabapentin) and Lyrica (pregabalin), its succesor.

Inventors: Butler; Donald E. (Holland, MI); Greenman; Barbara J. (Door, MI)
Assignee: Warner-Lambert Company (Morris Plains, NJ)
Appl. No.: 188819
Filed: May 2, 1988

patent application

Since it's old, you might want to try its succesor, pregabalin, instead.

Otherwise, it's too much work.

How ironic.

On valium, I can't answer the question definitively because I can't read German or Polish - and I would need to search physical archives anyway, any relevant research articles would be too old to appear on the web.

You don't need it, the history is documented on websites like the ones I pasted. He invented an entire class of drugs. Websites have the history of the drug development on them.

In any case, you've ignored the primary thrust of my response and concentrated on something secondary. This example is too old to be relevant to the modern period.

Huh? How is it "too old"? That's a totally arbitrary decision made to exclude examples that don't suit you. It's not seocndary either, this was and still is an extremely popular drug developed independently. You were asserting that most (or all?) drugs were developed because of public research, but if major drugs aren't like that, it seems to be dobutful.

From which I conclude with certainty that you do not know that medline only returns modern research - and are not up to speed in the field generally, because angiotensin was discovered fairly recently.

That's not the logical conclusion, because at that point you were only making vague references to general workings of blood pressure, the basics of which we had learned long ago. And you didn't listen, that drug you cited isn't on the list I gave. If you're going to make corporations out to be these big greedy monoliths leeching off public research, then you should at least use an example of a popular drug that they profitted a lot from.

You can't seem to find anytihng on that list. If you can't disprove my examples at least pick something from the list (NOT a narcotic) that's fairly new.

Get the full text of the first three from Dean and read them - or not, but they contain the information relevant to point a, and references relevant to point b, I'll let you judge his conclusions for yourself.

Even if I did that, why would I want conclusions for irrelevent articles? I've looked over the text of 4 out of 6, none of them cover the amount of public research that went into use with private drug research.

You said you wanted an example for blood pressure, and there it is.

Of a drug that wasn't in the top 200 list, which I specifically requested.

You never actually asked for an example for neurotensin (you asked the other guy), you just asserted that it was developed without any academic help, and since I don't know anything about chronic pain (I do know about blood pressure),

Neurontin, not neurotensin. Yes, I asked for evidence regarding Valium, but you provided none. Valium was a result of many failed experiments in completely new compounds with completely unknown effects. In fact, Leo Sternbach is credited with inventing benzodiazapines, the class of drugs it's in, meaning that there WAS NO prior research on those types of drugs.

See: http://www.benzo.org.uk/librium.htm , http://www.benzo.org.uk/valium2.htm

I can't cite anything for Neurontin, I'm going based on what a pain specialist (MD) has said regarding Neurontin (gabapentin) and Lyrica (pregabalin), its succesor.

Inventors: Butler; Donald E. (Holland, MI); Greenman; Barbara J. (Door, MI)
Assignee: Warner-Lambert Company (Morris Plains, NJ)
Appl. No.: 188819
Filed: May 2, 1988

patent application

Since it's old, you might want to try its succesor, pregabalin, instead.

Otherwise, it's too much work.

How ironic.

On valium, I can't answer the question definitively because I can't read German or Polish - and I would need to search physical archives anyway, any relevant research articles would be too old to appear on the web.

You don't need it, the history is documented on websites like the ones I pasted. He invented an entire class of drugs. Websites have the history of the drug development on them.

In any case, you've ignored the primary thrust of my response and concentrated on something secondary. This example is too old to be relevant to the modern period.

Huh? How is it "too old"? That's a totally arbitrary decision made to exclude examples that don't suit you. It's not seocndary either, this was and still is an extremely popular drug developed independently. You were asserting that most (or all?) drugs were developed because of public research, but if major drugs aren't like that, it seems to be dobutful.

From which I conclude with certainty that you do not know that medline only returns modern research - and are not up to speed in the field generally, because angiotensin was discovered fairly recently.

That's not the logical conclusion, because at that point you were only making vague references to general workings of blood pressure, the basics of which we had learned long ago. And you didn't listen, that drug you cited isn't on the list I gave. If you're going to make corporations out to be these big greedy monoliths leeching off public research, then you should at least use an example of a popular drug that they profitted a lot from.

You can't seem to find anytihng on that list. If you can't disprove my examples at least pick something from the list (NOT a narcotic) that's fairly new.

So of the ~180,000+ patents granted a year, only about 120 or so are made secret? Yeah, that's "all the time."

Source: U.S. Patent Statistics Chart

That was part of my missing "3." point. I couldn't find any 'unclassified' links to make that point, so I leave it out.
I add 3c: There is explicit mention of witholding patent publication for inventions for which secrecy is deemed necessary. See 35 U.S.C section 181 (PDF warning).

You mean like the patent that was filed and approved for a method of swinging on a swing? see patent 6368227. It made the news, and quite a few blogs, but of course it didnt change anything.

tm

GoPhone, as it currently is, is a rebranding of several of AT&T, Cingular, BellSouth, etc's, old prepaid plans, plus Cingular and AT&T's GSM prepaid plans. I have a GoPhone PAYG SIM, and I can tell you the fact it works on regular GSM phones and the fact the phone knows the real number of the telephone when it does means it's highly unlikely that their current PAYG or PYP plans actually infringe upon the patents. The patents themselves generally cover a myriad of ways of implementing prepaid service, generally by either putting a bogus phone number in the cellphone, which forces incoming calls to be routed via a third party and makes it easy to identify prepaid callers, or by having the phone programmed to make 800 calls and route outgoing calls via that.

This probably explains Cingular's insistance that this will not affect the majority of their prepaid customers.

here you go

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PT O2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2Fsearch-bool.ht ml&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=fougnies-douglas-v&FIELD1=&c o1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=ptxt

B.

Also this *innovation* is merely a box booting off flash card - no moving parts, no spin-up time and truly random access (disks are random cylinder, but serial track access). Essentially this would mean that we have a new form of OS on a motherboard which is probably locked down with security certs and all that.

• Storage Accelerator
• non-volatile cache for Raid-5

Also this *innovation* is merely a box booting off flash card - no moving parts, no spin-up time and truly random access (disks are random cylinder, but serial track access). Essentially this would mean that we have a new form of OS on a motherboard which is probably locked down with security certs and all that.

• Storage Accelerator
• non-volatile cache for Raid-5

Th Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences is established under 35 U.S.C.

The Administrative Patent Judges (who issued the opinion in the article) are appointed by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (i.e. "The Director"). The Administrative Patent Judges are regular employees of the patent office, and serve until they quit, retire, are removed, etc.

The Director is appointed by the President.

and for how long have they had the power to change the laws of the USA?

They don't have the power to change the law. They have the power to interpret patent law, "on written appeal of an applicant". Note that the applicant can then take this issue to federal court after it is reviewed.

In this case, the patent examiner rejected the patent claims of the applicant by arguing that they were outside the "technical arts". The patent applicant filed an appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The case was reviewed by the Board and a majority (3 of 5) found that there is no test under the law for determining what "technological arts" covers. The minority argued that the meaning of "technological arts" is equivalent to the "useful arts" phrase in the US Constitution.

The result of this is that a precedent has been set which determines that, "outside the technical arts", is not a justifiable reason under the law for rejecting patent claims.

Th Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences is established under 35 U.S.C.

The Administrative Patent Judges (who issued the opinion in the article) are appointed by the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (i.e. "The Director"). The Administrative Patent Judges are regular employees of the patent office, and serve until they quit, retire, are removed, etc.

The Director is appointed by the President.

and for how long have they had the power to change the laws of the USA?

They don't have the power to change the law. They have the power to interpret patent law, "on written appeal of an applicant". Note that the applicant can then take this issue to federal court after it is reviewed.

In this case, the patent examiner rejected the patent claims of the applicant by arguing that they were outside the "technical arts". The patent applicant filed an appeal to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The case was reviewed by the Board and a majority (3 of 5) found that there is no test under the law for determining what "technological arts" covers. The minority argued that the meaning of "technological arts" is equivalent to the "useful arts" phrase in the US Constitution.

The result of this is that a precedent has been set which determines that, "outside the technical arts", is not a justifiable reason under the law for rejecting patent claims.

" I won't steal your thunder " Before you were stealing my intellectual property, now you're stealing my thunder? Thats *my* thunder you're taking their buddy. :)

More seriously:
"bezier curves for issues of clarity, simplicity of implementation, ink conservation"
Thats damn close to the drawing a graph example the judges based their thinking on. Steal away.

Only tangentially related to this, have you seen this patent:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?u=/netah tml/srchnum.htm&Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&r=1&l= 50&f=G&d=PALL&s1=6767433.WKU.&OS=PN/6767433&RS=PN/ 6767433

For a solar still:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_still

This company received a patent on the solar still in 2004:
http://www.solaqua.com/solstilbas.html

I think USA has almost no prior art test at all, and no non-obvious test, this is a train wreck just waiting to be patented.

This approach has been patented long ago. The latest US Patent on is 6,577,946 which has references to all the olds one covering basically the same stuff.

They do have patents:
http://atomchip.com/_wsn/page2.html
Throw the numbers there into:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm
The EU site is below:
http://www.european-patent-office.org/
Which lead me to here:
http://www.espacenet.com/getstarted/index.en.htm
Which is where I stop before submitting this message to slashdot.

Basically, the technique uses a wireless sensor network to monitor door openings and closings. When someone turns the knob, a generator powers a wireless transmitter, which sends a request to some central authority, which determines whether the door should be opened or not.

The general term for these types of batteryless techniques is energy scavenging (or energy harvesting); there are many other examples of these techniques available on the web, and a book, "Energy Scavenging for Wireless Sensor Networks : with Special Focus on Vibrations," is also available. There is at least one company, Enocean, dedicated to the production of such systems.

See Microsoft's patent application 20030028685, "Application program interface for network software platform" covering the whole of the .NET API:
http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PG01&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/srchnu m.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1='20030028685'.PGNR.&OS=DN/2 0030028685&RS=DN/20030028685

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

The patents listed in the above web page:

5,579,517, filed 1995-4-24, granted 1996-11-26.
5,758,352, filed 1996-9-5, granted 1998-5-26.
6,286,013, filed 1997-1-28, granted 2001-9-4.

All of these patents appear to be related to VFAT, i.e. mapping long filenames and the original 8+3 short filenames into a common name-space. Although the filing dates are different and the title for one is slightly different, the abstract for each appears to be exactly the same.

I haven't examined the claims in each patent, so I don't know how these patents differ. It might be interesting to determine what is new in the 2nd and 3rd patents, since they were filed as long as 21 months after the 1st one. I wonder what wasn't in the original VFAT implementation? Bug fixes or features?

But, these patents don't appear to cover the "old" FAT filesystem: they address the later addition of long filenames. Again, IANAL, but I think that someone that confines themselves to the original FAT format (without long filenames) would have no need to license it from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

The patents listed in the above web page:

5,579,517, filed 1995-4-24, granted 1996-11-26.
5,758,352, filed 1996-9-5, granted 1998-5-26.
6,286,013, filed 1997-1-28, granted 2001-9-4.

All of these patents appear to be related to VFAT, i.e. mapping long filenames and the original 8+3 short filenames into a common name-space. Although the filing dates are different and the title for one is slightly different, the abstract for each appears to be exactly the same.

I haven't examined the claims in each patent, so I don't know how these patents differ. It might be interesting to determine what is new in the 2nd and 3rd patents, since they were filed as long as 21 months after the 1st one. I wonder what wasn't in the original VFAT implementation? Bug fixes or features?

But, these patents don't appear to cover the "old" FAT filesystem: they address the later addition of long filenames. Again, IANAL, but I think that someone that confines themselves to the original FAT format (without long filenames) would have no need to license it from Microsoft.

http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/ip/tech/fat.asp

The patents listed in the above web page:

5,579,517, filed 1995-4-24, granted 1996-11-26.
5,758,352, filed 1996-9-5, granted 1998-5-26.
6,286,013, filed 1997-1-28, granted 2001-9-4.

All of these patents appear to be related to VFAT, i.e. mapping long filenames and the original 8+3 short filenames into a common name-space. Although the filing dates are different and the title for one is slightly different, the abstract for each appears to be exactly the same.

I haven't examined the claims in each patent, so I don't know how these patents differ. It might be interesting to determine what is new in the 2nd and 3rd patents, since they were filed as long as 21 months after the 1st one. I wonder what wasn't in the original VFAT implementation? Bug fixes or features?

But, these patents don't appear to cover the "old" FAT filesystem: they address the later addition of long filenames. Again, IANAL, but I think that someone that confines themselves to the original FAT format (without long filenames) would have no need to license it from Microsoft.