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Tor Books is going to have to get in line behind the trademarked Tor Consulting, Mattel Inc's trademarked Tor-Speedo, TOR Minerals International's trademarked TOR BRITE pigment which they also also trademarked as TOR COAT, BTJ's trademarked TOR book sorting machines, Metal Box's TOR empty containers, Huntington Lamboratories' tradmarked Tor Multi-Purpose Germicidal Cleaner, and almost a hundred others.

I was going to link the full list, but I don't think the search result link will work. Instead you can simply go to the US Patent and Trademark Office, click Trademark-search, New User Form Search (Basic), and enter search term TOR.

Having a trademark does not make that word or phrase your "property". Like all so called "intellectual property", trademarks exist for the public's benefit not the holder's benefit. To put it simply, trademarks exist to protect the public from being confused/deceived as to what they are buying or who they are buying it from. I am perfectly free to sell Tor bubblegum because no one is going to confuse it with Tor science fiction novels. I cannot however sell Folex watches because people are likely to be confused and ripped off thinking they were buying a high quality and valuable Rolex watch.

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The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will host an exploratory meeting February 3-4, 2005 at USPTO headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, to discuss the current state of substantive patent law harmonization and possible approaches for moving harmonization forward. Harmonization of patent laws will facilitate obtaining worldwide protection, which is essential to success in the global marketplace. Talks on substantive patent law harmonization at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) have been delayed until May 2005 as a result of disagreement among WIPO member states over the content of a proposed harmonization treaty and the best way to proceed with discussions.

This meeting will be an important step in getting substantive patent law harmonization back on track, noted Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property. Harmonization promises to bring substantial benefits, including uniform patent examination, reduced patent office workloads, and enhanced patent quality. The sooner we can agree on a basic framework, the sooner we can begin providing these benefits to patent applicants, patent offices and the public alike.

Among those invited to participate in the USPTO meeting are representatives from Canada, Australia, Japan, the European Commission, the European Patent Office and the Member States of the European Patent Convention. The meeting will be limited to government representatives only.

A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required.

Allow me to point you in th right direction. Expressing the reasons that US and International Copyrights protect a creator of Intelectual Property from unliscened and unwarranted sales would take many hours without the all parties having extensive knowledge of the many laws and acts involved.

First look at the US Copyright law:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

Then take a look at the American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 and the Intellectual Property and High Technology Technical Amendments Acts of 2001 and 2002:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/aipa/in dex.htm

Both of these site contain alot of technical and legal information. There are many sites devoted to IP both in the US and internationaly:
http://www.wipo.int/ and http://www.aipla.org/ are just a couple.

Once you have a good understanding of Intellectual Property law read over the WoW End User License Agreement and Terms of Use both of which I have quoted else where in this thread: http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/eula.html
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/legal/termsofuse.ht ml

Pay Close attention to EULA Section 3 and 13 (which states you agree to the laws of the state of California) and TOU section 2 subsection H, Section 7 and Section 10.

That should clarify the situation. If you need more information feel free to ask questions and, time permiting I will look up specific case law. I would also suggest contact a legal profesional in your area who is familiar with US Intellectual Property law.

Actually, that's not true in most places anymore. U.S. Congress removed the legal requirement for a working model (miniature or not) in 1870. The USPTO kept the requirement until 1880. The patented invention is, of course, supposed to work in reality but that isn't always clear. There have even been perpetual motion machines inadvertently patented even through the USPTO has a rule against that.

Both patents and copyrights are really about ideas. (IANAPL, but I've been following IP law for many years, so this is my take on it.) Patents are on the idea of how something works (device, business model, algorithm, etc.). Actual implementations of a patented idea might look completely different, but they violate the patent if they operate in the same manner. (This doesn't mean that the input-output is the same, it's the conversion from input to output that matters.)

A copyright is on an organization (pattern) of idea that is a work of imagination. For example, building a working model of a patented device is an expression of the idea but it is not patentable because the idea is not a work of imagination, it is a work of physics. Some would argue that the copyright is on the expression of the idea, but I don't think this is quite descriptive enough. This would imply that the recording of a song, which is an expression of the song, would have a different copyright from the writing of the notes of the song, which is a different expression of the same song. A copyright covers all expressions that represent the same work of imagination.

I say it is the organization of the idea that is copyrighted because (a) (as described above) copyrighting the expression itself is insufficient to cover all potential expressions, and (b) a general concept is not patentable. For example, I cannot copyright "A story about a detective who solves murders". Then all such books, stories, TV shows, and movies that fit that description would violate my copyright. The words to a particular story are copyrighted, whether written, spoken, or played out in a TV show or movie. But a paraphrasing of the story is not a violation of the copyright. Changing it slightly and calling it a different story is a violation though. In short, there is a grey area between paraphrasing and slightly modifying a copyrighted work. Somewhere in the middle is the boundary of the copyright. It's the organization of the idea that is important regardless of how it is expressed.

Actually, that's not true in most places anymore. U.S. Congress removed the legal requirement for a working model (miniature or not) in 1870. The USPTO kept the requirement until 1880. The patented invention is, of course, supposed to work in reality but that isn't always clear. There have even been perpetual motion machines inadvertently patented even through the USPTO has a rule against that.

Both patents and copyrights are really about ideas. (IANAPL, but I've been following IP law for many years, so this is my take on it.) Patents are on the idea of how something works (device, business model, algorithm, etc.). Actual implementations of a patented idea might look completely different, but they violate the patent if they operate in the same manner. (This doesn't mean that the input-output is the same, it's the conversion from input to output that matters.)

A copyright is on an organization (pattern) of idea that is a work of imagination. For example, building a working model of a patented device is an expression of the idea but it is not patentable because the idea is not a work of imagination, it is a work of physics. Some would argue that the copyright is on the expression of the idea, but I don't think this is quite descriptive enough. This would imply that the recording of a song, which is an expression of the song, would have a different copyright from the writing of the notes of the song, which is a different expression of the same song. A copyright covers all expressions that represent the same work of imagination.

I say it is the organization of the idea that is copyrighted because (a) (as described above) copyrighting the expression itself is insufficient to cover all potential expressions, and (b) a general concept is not patentable. For example, I cannot copyright "A story about a detective who solves murders". Then all such books, stories, TV shows, and movies that fit that description would violate my copyright. The words to a particular story are copyrighted, whether written, spoken, or played out in a TV show or movie. But a paraphrasing of the story is not a violation of the copyright. Changing it slightly and calling it a different story is a violation though. In short, there is a grey area between paraphrasing and slightly modifying a copyrighted work. Somewhere in the middle is the boundary of the copyright. It's the organization of the idea that is important regardless of how it is expressed.

Actually, that's not true in most places anymore. U.S. Congress removed the legal requirement for a working model (miniature or not) in 1870. The USPTO kept the requirement until 1880. The patented invention is, of course, supposed to work in reality but that isn't always clear. There have even been perpetual motion machines inadvertently patented even through the USPTO has a rule against that.

Both patents and copyrights are really about ideas. (IANAPL, but I've been following IP law for many years, so this is my take on it.) Patents are on the idea of how something works (device, business model, algorithm, etc.). Actual implementations of a patented idea might look completely different, but they violate the patent if they operate in the same manner. (This doesn't mean that the input-output is the same, it's the conversion from input to output that matters.)

A copyright is on an organization (pattern) of idea that is a work of imagination. For example, building a working model of a patented device is an expression of the idea but it is not patentable because the idea is not a work of imagination, it is a work of physics. Some would argue that the copyright is on the expression of the idea, but I don't think this is quite descriptive enough. This would imply that the recording of a song, which is an expression of the song, would have a different copyright from the writing of the notes of the song, which is a different expression of the same song. A copyright covers all expressions that represent the same work of imagination.

I say it is the organization of the idea that is copyrighted because (a) (as described above) copyrighting the expression itself is insufficient to cover all potential expressions, and (b) a general concept is not patentable. For example, I cannot copyright "A story about a detective who solves murders". Then all such books, stories, TV shows, and movies that fit that description would violate my copyright. The words to a particular story are copyrighted, whether written, spoken, or played out in a TV show or movie. But a paraphrasing of the story is not a violation of the copyright. Changing it slightly and calling it a different story is a violation though. In short, there is a grey area between paraphrasing and slightly modifying a copyrighted work. Somewhere in the middle is the boundary of the copyright. It's the organization of the idea that is important regardless of how it is expressed.

Open Source is a trade mark

Wrong.

Could you please provide the patent numbers? I tried to search, but couldn't find one from USPTO

As far as I knew, patents are there to protect the inventors not the public. In fact, according to the patent office Here "The role of the USPTO is to grant patents for the protection of inventions and to register trademarks. It serves the interest of inventors and businesses with respect to their inventions and corporate products, and service identifications."

I am not sure if I understand the misconception here. It seems pretty self-explanetory. Now I know someone here will say that is because the businesses "p0wned" us, but it applies to anyone. So Joe Schmoe can invent something in his garage, patent it and then not have to worry that big multi-billion dollar business does some espionage and steal his idea. It works both ways.

As far as patents and public interest - most people could care less other then the fact that they want to get everything for free (thats too bad, because life doesn't work that way). A minority actually cares about patents - and they are people like us who talk about this stuff and people who utilize patents or have some direct involvement.

I think the caveman example is bad - for multiple reasons: 1) his patent expired 2) you cannot patent something you did not invent - and fire was not a man-made function. Now a better example to is patenting the process of creating fire (i.e. I invented flint & steal process to make sparks to help make fire)...well someone could patent that process - nothing wrong with it. If I spend my time creating a process that makes life easier for people - I should have the right to make some money on it (nothing wrong with this). Obviously if I am trying to patent a process invented by someone else (a good example is the "one click" process) that is morally wrong and should be shot down - but I am talking on a legitimate process.

You mention "inherent nature of inventions is to spread and to be used by anyone who..." You seem to be hopping from natural law to man made law quickly. The natural process in life does not include a monetary system (or even a barter system), it does not include computers, or anything of the sort. This is a unique process to humans (barring aliens). Just because we were not utilizing patents 10,000 years ago does not mean we shouldn't now...it was a different time then - also harder to do such a thing.

Farmers get subsidies to help them deal with bad seasons, poor prices for food. They work hard and barely scratch a living. It serves our interest to help them because if we don't - soon you will find that only major corporations own the farms (i personally hate KFC). We cannot discuss about "natural right" because almost everything in human usage is not natural - cars, mathematics, money, houses, computers, laws, gov't, etc..

Here is a question: If an inventor should not have a right to collect a profit (as he see's fit) for something that he spent his time/money creating ---- why should someone who works at McDonalds serving hamburgers make a profit?

Somebody really needs to pull the plug on this whole patent crap.
I mean, COME ON !

Somebody really needs to pull the plug on this whole patent crap.
I mean, COME ON !

Number 4,320,756

Fresh-air breathing device and method

Invented by William Holmes in 1981.

.

I claim:

1. A method for breathing fresh air in a room filled with toxic smoke comprising the steps of

inserting a breathing tube through a water trap of a toilet to expose an open end thereof to fresh air from a vent pipe connected to a sewer line of said toilet, and

breathing said fresh air through said breathing tube.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of flushing said toilet prior to said inserting step. LOL :)

3. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of blowing any water out of said tube subsequent to said inserting step and prior to said breathing step. LOL :)

4. The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of filtering the fresh air breathed through said tube.

.

Smart idea but I would rather take my chances with the CO2 than the NH3.

Toilet snorkel link, (it is not actually called this):

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=4,320,756.WKU.&OS=PN/4,320,756&RS =PN/4,320,756

U.S. patents already have such maintenance fees, and large corporate holders of patents still pay them.

Yeh, but they isn't much wrong with their patent. They have a design patent which as far as I can tell only covers the look and not use.

From the USPTO: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/design/#def Unlike a utility application, where the "claim" describes the invention in a lengthy written explanation, the claim in a design patent application protects the overall visual appearance of the design, "described" in the drawings. It is essential that the applicant present a set of drawings (or photographs) of the highest quality which conform to the rules and standards which are reproduced in this guide.

So...anybody who trims the crust off of their own bread is doing an illegal sandwich mod?

No. Read the patent. It's actually a pretty clever design (though probably not original). The bread is crimped around the edge so the sandwich can stay for some time without danger of leaking. The jelly is surrounded by the sticky peanut butter, which both prevents jelly leaks and helps hold the edges of the bread together.

It looks like this (with bread slices at the top):
/PBPBPBPBPB\
<PBJJJJJJPB>
\PBPBPBPBPB/

Referring to High protein peanut butter and jelly sandwich and method of making the same, I see nothing which is non-obvious to "a person skilled in the art" of sandwich-making. I encourage folks to take direct action by handing out free home-made crustless PBJ's, especially if you can get to the corporate headquarters in Ohio.

A recent winner at the Ig Nobel awards. (I think he figured out step 2)
The Comb over
A direct link to the Patent

how about a section of slashdot devoted to patents which have been spotted by a /.er (i remember an article in 'main' about microsoft patenting virtual desktops for example), this way the /. crowd can debunk patents as a group, for example somebody might say "i remember twm had virtual desktops in 1992, here's a link to prove it"*.

Then somebody (either one of the /. editors if they feel inclinded) or a /.er can use the following procedure to officially protest, or report it to that website of the organisation that protests against patents officially (i spent about 10 mins googling and couldn't find it but im sure somebody else knows what i mean)

* i dont know if this is exactly acurate, just an example

not cool for DSL, feather linux, runt, puppy, flonix and others USB GNU/Linux USB distros :
link to Patent on "Portable operating system and method to load the same ".

Instead of bitching about how broken the USPTO is, and how the patents they grant are obvious...

Get a job at the USPTO as a patent master.

not cool for DSL, feather linux, puppy and others USB GNU/Linux distros : link to Patent on "Portable operating system and method to load the same ".

I think you're reading that wrong; I think "last listed owner" refers to the actual owner, and "registrant" to the first person to file with a claim of ownership. Try this page.

The USPTO lists Croce as trademark owner. The USPTO should have updated their records to reflect the correct ownership.

Apple applied for the trademark before this guy registered the domain. 2 weeks before to be precise. You should try RTFAing yourself, where A is Application.

No, he knew from the publicly accessible USPTO records that clearly showed Apple's new product to be named "iTunes" and was published approximately two weeks before he registered itunes.co.uk. Coincendence? I don't believe in them.

You are defending the "process patents" that I attacked at the beginning of this subthread. Paperclips are not processes. They are "methods", in the archaic parlance of patents, but they are methods as a physical device, not a series of human transactions. If you want to split hairs like that, you'll have to find another way.

BTW. the figure illustrates "the overal architecture of a computer network in accordance with the present invention"

Previous /. article provides link to this description.

BTW. the figure illustrates "the overal architecture of a computer network in accordance with the present invention"

Previous /. article provides link to this description.

From an interview with Clarke: http://www.kinetikonpictures.com/books/texts/clark e.htm "[later, after Clarke takes a nap] ACC: I had a chance to think, before I went to sleep, and I had an interesting idea. You know my problem with walking around now? If you had a reasonable-sized balloon it could give you some useful lift, you see? MB: That's true. ACC: About a thousand cubic feet could give you about a hundred pounds of lift. That means a balloon by ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. That means a balloon that's big, but not ridiculous. So I think when we get back I'll get one of my ballooning friends to look into this. MB: Well, what about if there's a wind? ACC: That's exactly what I thought of too, and you'd be in trouble. And of course if I had more than a thousand cubic feet the air force would have to shoot me down! [laughs] But it would be fun to do it indoors, in an arena or something. It would be a good sport, I'm surprised it hasn't been done. MB: Yeah, you could moon-walk! Bounce around. ACC: Exactly. A sixth of a G [Earth gravity]. That would be nice. MB: That's a good idea, you should immediately patent that one! ACC: I don't think it's patentable. MB: You could have a new sport. New sports, in fact. ACC: I'm very fond of quoting someone who said that a patent is merely a license to be sued! [laughs]"
Helium Balloon Patent: 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=6,325,329.WKU.&OS=PN/6,325,329&RS =PN/6,325,329> Parabounce: http://www.parabounce.com/

(aside: what MORON made Mozilla unable to handle tiffs by default, and refused to allow the user to do anything useful with a right-click like SAVE THEM?)

For the curious, these two patent applications (note they're just applications at this stage) by Google cover most of the AdSense/AdWords technology:

Methods and apparatus for serving relevant advertisements

Serving advertisements based on content

For the curious, these two patent applications (note they're just applications at this stage) by Google cover most of the AdSense/AdWords technology:

Methods and apparatus for serving relevant advertisements

Serving advertisements based on content

So when will Microsoft will sue them because the name is similar to IfNot, their patented invention?

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=P TO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/netahtml/PTO/search-bool.h tml&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PG01&s1=20020138637&OS= 20020138637&RS=20020138637

from the US Patents Site.

Here's a patent app on a nonbinary processor.

It sounds revolutionary. And judging by the parent company's stock performance, I'd say that there's a pretty good chance that someone will be commercializing it soon. Especially since the company is teetering on the edge of solvency.

"It has THE greatest pager ever. It even updates the mini window images in real time!"

Yes it has - which is probably why someone is attempting to steal the idea and patent it as though it were their own invention ;-)

I just watched the video and it certainly is cool and beautiful. Maybe E17 could make itself some extra development funding by making appearances in some movies. I've always liked E16 but found it a bit too flaky for everyday use and it's development progressed painfully slowly over the years. Eventually I ended up using mostly Window Maker and Fluxbox. This constant rewriting everything from the ground up and the goal of extreme user configurability and flexibility makes me think they should've been (or at least wish they had been) developing E17 with Lisp.... [dream] # emerge cl-efl [/dream].... :)

Dear Slashdotters,

For future reference, the USPTO now offers much more information that may be useful for tracking patents. The information is accessible via the PAIR system, which stands for Patent Application Information Retrieval. A link is available via the USPTO website at www.uspto.gov (to the left where it says "Status and IFW"). If you search for the publication number (20040234938), you can look at the image file wrapper (IFW).

Included in the IFW are several information disclosure statements (IDSs). These are documents provided by the inventors and attorneys which contain prior art known to the inventors and attorneys. Eventually you will be able to see the examiner responding to the patent with objections, rejections, or maybe allowances of the claims. As you can see, the 18 month publication just occurred but the application has not been assigned to an examiner yet.

Dear Slashdotters,

For future reference, the USPTO now offers much more information that may be useful for tracking patents. The information is accessible via the PAIR system, which stands for Patent Application Information Retrieval. A link is available via the USPTO website at www.uspto.gov (to the left where it says "Status and IFW"). If you search for the publication number (20040234938), you can look at the image file wrapper (IFW).

Included in the IFW are several information disclosure statements (IDSs). These are documents provided by the inventors and attorneys which contain prior art known to the inventors and attorneys. Eventually you will be able to see the examiner responding to the patent with objections, rejections, or maybe allowances of the claims. As you can see, the 18 month publication just occurred but the application has not been assigned to an examiner yet.

Another evil MS patent story.

Considering the raft of stupid patent applications in the system, it is a wonder that only the MS ones get play. Oh, wait, this is /. ! Silly me.

Take the number of MS's application and subtract two, for instance. What do you get?

System and method for generating and providing educational exercises. From the sounds of the legalese, basically a program (sorry, "method" :vomit:) that will spit out multiple-choice tests from a bunch of preprogrammed questions and answers. One of the "inventors" is a CS professor at Stanford university.

So it ain't just MS, or even just the big corps, who play this stupid game. The whole system's broken.

In other news, daytime sky is blue, film at 11.

Check out the first PLATO patent, issued in 1968 for a Versatile Display Teaching System. BTW, PLATO was conceived in 1959.

> (If you did, you would have yourself a perpetual motion machine. You wouldn't be able to patent it, though, since even the USPTO will throw that out without reading it.)

Perhaps not surprisingly there are accepted patents that state such (or similar) things.

In this (6,698,200) example there are mentions of carnot efficiency excedence, or devices that require modifications to the fundamental laws of thermodynamics. A stirling engine that "self-refrigerates."

(I'm not making a case for this patent, just pointing out some of the things the USPTO does in fact accept.)

Now, I guess IBM is unlikely to sue

Especially given that the prior Unisys patent is prior art that would probably invalidate the claims of IBM's patent as they relate to implementations of LZW. (Other claims in that patent are said to relate to other compression structures.)

I used to think that what Windows needed was an SU ability

Where does it says that the assignee of this patent is Microsoft? The word "microsoft" appears just a few times in references to Microsoft programming language products, but nowhere it mentions that MS has rights over IsNot. The "inventors" are Vick, Paul A. JR.; (Seattle, WA) ; Barsan, Costica Corneliu; (Bellevue, WA) ; Silver, Amanda K.; (Seattle, WA) and a corporation named WOODCOCK WASHBURN LLP is cited as "Correspondence". The patent was filed on 14 May 2003 but the USPTO gave it the code 20040230959 and published it on 18 November 2004. It appears that it is not an actual patent yet, but just an application. I don't pay any attention to patent applications. Here in my country I have seen many applications in our patent office for UFO constructions et cetera. Of course they are never accepted.

Interpretations of the statute by the courts have defined the limits of the field of subject matter which can be patented, thus it has been held that the laws of nature, physical phenomena and abstract ideas are not patentable subject matter.

A patent cannot be obtained upon a mere idea or suggestion. The patent is granted upon the new machine, manufacture, etc., as has been said, and not upon the idea or suggestion of the new machine. A complete description of the actual machine or other subject matter for which a patent is sought is required.

That's actually similar to what Brightmail does now (and has actually received a patent on).

While that works to get a lot of spam, what seems to be unique about Project Honeypot is that they are actually tracking down the IPs of the harvesters that are stealing addresses. What they could do at some point after they get enough data is create a new kind of RBL. Instead of blocking SMTP traffic they could block HTTP of known harvesters.

Imagine a day when you could safely put your email address back online. Maybe a pipedream, but seems like this service is the first step if it's possible.

It really worked. You could transfer hundreds of megabytes over slow, unreliable connections - so long as you didn't really mind how long it took to transfer. Hours... Days... Weeks...

The protocol was highly optimized. Everything was encrypted. They used differential downloading technology (similar to that used in revision control systems) to only transfer the changes made between different versions of the same file.

Nevertheless, they failed.

They failed to make a simple, concise and compelling argument as to why a business should pay good money for this technology.

And they failed to make the software easy to install, configure, deploy and maintain.

So, today they have little to show for their efforts other than a handful of patents.

Oddly enough, the US government and the MPAA may achive what BackWeb Marketing never could: providing a compelling argument for a secure, private file-sharing technology and the motivation to make it usable and deployable.

BTW, your "trickle-sync" idea is similar in some respects to one of BackWeb's patented Technologies.

Caveat scriptor.

It really worked. You could transfer hundreds of megabytes over slow, unreliable connections - so long as you didn't really mind how long it took to transfer. Hours... Days... Weeks...

The protocol was highly optimized. Everything was encrypted. They used differential downloading technology (similar to that used in revision control systems) to only transfer the changes made between different versions of the same file.

Nevertheless, they failed.

They failed to make a simple, concise and compelling argument as to why a business should pay good money for this technology.

And they failed to make the software easy to install, configure, deploy and maintain.

So, today they have little to show for their efforts other than a handful of patents.

Oddly enough, the US government and the MPAA may achive what BackWeb Marketing never could: providing a compelling argument for a secure, private file-sharing technology and the motivation to make it usable and deployable.

BTW, your "trickle-sync" idea is similar in some respects to one of BackWeb's patented Technologies.

Caveat scriptor.

Sadly, given the state of the patent system nowadays, it would not surprise me if it is granted.

Attention all SlashDotters: you too can join the hunt for prior art on patents! That's right -- the US Code Section 35 part 301 specifies that "Any person at any time may cite to the Office in writing prior art consisting of patents or printed publications which that person believes to have a bearing on the patentability of any claim of a particular patent. If the person explains in writing the pertinency and manner of applying such prior art to at least one claim of the patent, the citation of such prior art and the explanation thereof will become a part of the official file of the patent. At the written request of the person citing the prior art, his or her identity will be excluded from the patent file and kept confidential."

See also Persons Who May Cite Prior Art", which explicitly says that "'Any person' includes patentees, licensees, reexamination requesters, real parties in interest, persons without a real interest, and persons acting for real parties in interest without a need to identify the real party of interest." You don't even need to have a legal stake in the outcome of the patent application in order to submit prior art.

Mind you, it's probably not as straightforward as just writing a letter to the US Patent and Trademark Office. Nothing is ever straightforward with legal stuff, and the USPTO web site doesn't go out of its way to advertise the approved method for submitting prior art. Could somebody with more legal background than I have please write a HOWTO on submitting prior art? Then, every time a story pops up on SlashDot about patents like this one, we can all turn our collective attention to unearthing prior art that might shoot down the foul thing instead of bellyaching about how b0rked the system is.