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Delphion To Start Charging For Patent Access
adenied writes: "According to this Delphion is going to start charging for full access to their patent database starting June 1. The only thing that will be available will be U.S. bibliographic data. For those of you who don't remember, Delphion is the company that is running the old IBM patent server womplex.patent.ibm.com. This really sucks. Anyone know other free patent servers out there on the net?" Thanks to IBM, there has been amazing free access to these files for a while. But as a public office, it seems reasonable to me that the USPTO be required to make their patent files, well .. public, actually.
Why does everyone act as if the USPTO has nothing to offer?
They do indeed have patent records, in particular high quality tiff scans of nearly all of them accessible by patent records number.
The text searching is not complete, but much of serious patent research is done using the published patent record indexes anyway.
The USPTO has plenty to offer.
Hi Timothy,
I am the anonymous coward of the first post. You make some good points, though i do have my own reservations also:
1) When i say "everyone" has the right to peruse public information, i mean that The Opportunity Exists. I think you are saying that all citizens should have access to public information all the time. I agree in theory, however it is impractical to say the least. Certainly most public libraries are equipped with internet access, but what about those people who are living/on vacation hundreds of miles from a public library?
You cannot provide for everyone all the time, but you can make sure The Opportunity Exists. If it's public information, it has to be freely available, somehow, somewhere. A homeless person in San Diego probably wouldn't be inclined to walk to DC to find public information, but he is simply unfortunate.
(On a side note, i think the purpose of government is to ensure there aren't any homeless people who can't access public information - fix the cause, not the symptoms.)
2) I agree the internet is an ideal place to distribute this information. The "tech divide" is very real, though - age, poverty, intelligence, location - so even then you aren't going to get full coverage.
I personally would very much like all information to be online. Right now i do my white pages, yellow pages, bus timetables and train timetables online. It's wonderful. That said, i do not believe the government has an obligation to publish online. It's their choice - as long as there is still some method of access we're still doing alright.
Alison
Nothing like an error message in Swedish to make your day, eh?
I'd be forced to bring a lawsuit against anyone trying to infringe on my intellectual property.
Just like in HHGTTG, if you were able to get there (or in this case pay) you'd have known about it right?
:)
Of course, how else are they going to stop the little guys like us from catching big business with their pants around their ankles for putting patents out on things like multiplayer games. Fuckers. I mean, when society is heading toward freedom of information, what more do we need than a ministry of information. I know this isn't quite to that degree yet, but it's a start. Make it less accessable to the common man, and then they start making it harder and harder to get access, until finally, this "public" office has nothing for the public to worry about..... move along, nothing to see here.
</rant>
Sorry about that
Nope. Paid for by property taxes. Charged to the property owner - either you pay directly or if you rent it's part of your rent.
or broadcast TV
Not even close. Why do you think all those commercials are in there?
...phil
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
The patent office is self-supporting. Look it up.
Which happens to be one of the biggest flaws in the US patent system.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I think the money paid by those applying for patents more than recoups any costs associated with putting a patent database on-line.
I don't see how wanting the patent office to provide access to its files conflicts w/ Libertarian ideology. More likely the concept of patents itself conflicts. Libertarian writings tend to say that the reason for monopolies is that government creates them. This happens to be one of those ways.
It's annoying.. but better than yet another failed .com business. Giving away information for free can't last forever.
I don't know, existence in nature seems to be a pretty good example of prior art to me.
Honestly, I think that patenting random discoveries (genes and the like) is idiotic.
Think about this scenario: Random company discovers a gene somewhere that does something interesting and patents. Sometime later, a baby is born with this gene due to a natural mutation (assuming a mutation can ever be considered natural). Now what? The baby, which has the gene, is in violation of the random companies patent. Does this mean the parents have to pay license fees? If they can't afford to pay, what happens? Should they go to prison because their child happens to have this gene? The possible rammifications are staggering.
Anyway, the thought that a company can stumble over something and then claim that they actually did something important in finding it and deserve compensation for their efforts is absurd. Anyone can find something by accident, being first to find something that already exists in nature does not give you the right to own it.
So reasonable that they've already done it. See www.uspto.gov for a searchable index.
And this script can be downloaded at ... [insert URL which will get you a +2 informative here]
Or did you just make that up ?
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
They've got image files dating back to the 1800's and a searchable database for the same.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Actually, a lot of pharmaceutical companies' "R&D" budgets goes toward maintenance research, not development of new drugs. A lot of the initial research they capitalize on is already done in a "socialist" manner: by tax-funded universities and federal agencies. In some cases companies help fund the research in exchange for the patent and commercialization rights; in others they're patenting and commercializing the implementation of the drug (so to speak). Nearly all of the most important vaccines of the 20th century came out of these "socialist" research facilities, not out of pharmaceutical companies.
It's also worth noting that drug companies are not exactly going out of business in Canada, where drug prices have arbitrary caps imposed by their socialized (gasp) insurance system. (Note that it isn't socialized medicine in the way most Americans picture it; doctors in Canada are still generally in private practice, and they're not hurting. They don't make as much as American counterparts, but they don't have the insanely high insurance rates their American counterparts do, either.)
Public access? But that means that some people would be depriving patent attorneys of their fees, by searching through on their own! What kind of un-American idea is that? Normal people don't need that kind of information.
What's your classification, citizen?
Here it is.
Now pay up.
And I have just successfully converted the patent #4558302 to a pdf. Whatever problems you are having may be a result of different versions of the tools pat2pdf uses. That's the problem with scripts like this - too fragile and dependent on the environment you are using.
pat2pdf 1.01
ghostscript 6.0
libtiff 3.5.4
-
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Can I now read 500 jokes about patenting the process of pay-for patent access?
And a few about patenting breathing for old times sake.
Geez... a search on Google only got me about fifty thousand hits for the program. I think it's real.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
"Would you expect to go to the USPTO and not have to pay for use of the photocopy machine ? I wouldn't."
I'd expect free photocopies, if the marginal cost were 0.000001 cents per page. They are an informational agency. Web access to their database should be a basic part of their budget.
the people who use it should pay for it.
I agree completely. The USPTO was set up to grant inventors a limited monopoly in return for disclosing their invention. Who profits from the monopoly? Not me; not you; certainly not the taxpayer. Who then?
The patent holders!
So who is using the patent office?
The patent holders!
Who should pay to make their patents publicly available?
The patent owners!
Patents already work on a 'subscription' basis - you have to pay every so often to renew your patent, up to the limit of 20 years (IANAL - correct me if needed). my somewhat immodest proposal is this...
Make the patent office self-supporting. You and I get access to all the patents on the internet. The USPTo charges a variable fee every year to cover their costs. Any profits are returned to the patent holders (sort of like an income tax refund).
All in favor?
No. Patents cannot be copyrighted.
That would solve the problem.
Sure would. It would cause a mass exodus of all technolgical development from the US to countries that do recognize patents.
Folks, this is for corporate legal offices, and does not bode well for the struggling entrepreneur or the academic researcher.
To begin with most University libraries have the patent database on CD ROM available for full text searching and immediate printout.
If the entreprenuer is struggling to the point where he cannot afford $75 for one month access to Delpion, he isn't going to make it anyway.
If you think that people cannot get together to innovate, consider NASA.
Yes, let's consider NASA. A giant pork-barrel for defense contractors. No stockholders. No profitability. No responsiveness whatsoever to market needs.
Consider also that innovation is already heavily funded by governments
After repealing patents ALL innovation will have to be funded by governments. Didn't the Soviet Union and Japan's MITI teach us a lesson about centrally planned economies?
Do a search on the net for DARPA funded projects and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about.
My Dad was a senior DARPA project manager. He got to administer projects like the ceramic diesel engine. Give me a fscking break.
All countries would have to follow suit.
I think it would be highly unlikely that all 160 countries that recognize patent rights would immediately follow the US down the toilet.
People would no longer be hampered by fascist laws and life saving drugs would suddenly be affordable to third world countries.
Third world countries don't have the infrastructure to deliver the drugs even if they were FREE. Look at the history of vacinations or control of common parisites in Africa. The UN not only has to supply the drugs free, but also supply the infrastructure to deliver them.
Also the best possible solutions to technological problems would be quickly adopted by all as opposed to people spending an incredible amount of effort trying to circumvent somebody else's patent and reinventing the wheel. What a waste!
People who spout this sort of nonsense have NO grasp of the history of technology in commerce. Prior to the establishment of patents in 18th century England innovation and dissemination of technological progress was greatly hampered by the need for inventors to keep their inventions secret to prevent their being copied. The result was machines in sealed boxes, guilds where the methods of manufacture were kept secret by draconian contract, and licenses or contracts prohibiting the reverse engineering of goods sold. Some historians even attribute the onset of the industrial revolution to the passage of patent laws. Talk about re-inventing the wheel - since there was no body of published technology (i.e. patents) anyone wanting to develop an invention had to do so from scratch since everything was kept secret.
Patents changed all that by establishment of a right to commercial exploitation for a limited period of time of an invention in exchange for full disclosure.
Kinda like the DMCA, right? Oh... the DMCA applies EVEN WITH patent laws. Interesting.
The DCMA covers copyrighted materials which is a completely different body of law.
Reverse engineering FOR THE PURPOSES OF EVADING COPY PROTECTION is the prohibition here. If you have some other use in mind, go ahead.
So we're seeing one giant step BACKWARDS the past few years, then.
Bingo. The steps backwards we are seeing are due to the fact that existing laws/institutions were and are not protecting copyright holders. Thus the only way they can protect themselves is with means very much less desirable to society as a whole. As/if conventional copyright/patent laws become unsatisfactory, creators of intellectual property will become less willing to make their work available in forms that these laws traditionally protected. The result we are seeing is a return to less freedom to the user and a decline in utility for these materials.
The history of intellectual property is quite clear - and the reasons that we have copyright and patent laws are still fundamentally sound.
The US Patent files have ALWAYS been public (since the founding of the UPTO over 200 years ago anyway).
Anyone can saunter into the USPTO and peruse the files.
It's a very different question as to whether a government agency should be required to spend taxpayer dollars to make their files freely available on the internet. The cost for doing so is non-trivial; many would argue that the people who use it should pay for it.
Would you expect to go to the USPTO and not have to pay for use of the photocopy machine ? I wouldn't.
It's probably not as nice and polished, but it probably does the job: http://164.195.100.11/netahtml/search-bool.html
Maan
Smart companies know that immediate profit isn't the end-all of strategy. I'm not saying that they have definately made the wrong move, but you shouldn't dismiss the idea that keeping the database running for free is a smart business move. See "reputation" and "respect".
Slashdot 's editors are dickheads
I find this very hard to believe. If some of the patents on various drugs were dropped today, this probably would benefit some 3d world countries, but I can't see too many large pharma companies investing their resources in developing new drugs. If that happened, when the current generation of drugs becomes obsolete (evolution, y'know), we'd be pretty much screwed.
Of course, in moderation this could work-- and well! Several developing nations *do* allow companies to make generic copies of drugs that help with many of the problem diseases. A recent UN resolution (check your favourite news sites) actually condones this practice to some degree. For example, South Africa manufactures copies of various AIDS drugs to help people who could *never* afford these drugs. They were being sued by serveral of the large American pharma companies for this, but the suits have since been dropped.
The real problem with patents on medicines is that in order to design and test a new drug (to make sure it works and is safe!), a pharma company needs to invest huge amounts of money. To turn a profit on this investment before their patent runs out, they *have* to charge such high prices on the drug. This puts the drug out of reach of people living in essentially all developing countries, and many people in the so-called developed countries. Only those fortunate enought to be wealthy or have exceptional healthcare coverage have access to them.
Short of a global, socialist healthcare system (yeah right), I don't seem much of an effective solution other than the current one-- i.e. enforce patent laws on drugs here to allow the companies to turn a profit, and ignore any "violations" by developing countries. Kind of depressing in a way...
It's only software!
Dear Alison:
You said:
"1) When i say "everyone" has the right to peruse public information, i mean that The Opportunity Exists. I think you are saying that all citizens should have access to public information all the time. I agree in theory, however it is impractical to say the least. Certainly most public libraries are equipped with internet access, but what about those people who are living/on vacation hundreds of miles from a public library?"
Hmm. Well, this sounds like you're saying "Since it's impractical on a small scale for many people to get to a library or other Internet access point, why should be bother to make it accessable to anyone at all?" You're right that not everyone is always at a public internet terminal, but I named that only as a lowest common denominator really, since libraries are in most towns / areas.
You also wrote: "It's their choice - as long as there is still some method of access we're still doing alright."
OK, facietious alert;)
If the patent office was only open 6 months a year, would that be "some method of access" good enough for this? How about 3 months? One week? Three days of banker's hours, every other year, and never when those days fall on Sundays? I object to government arrogance as unreasonable, but it sounds to me like you're apologizing for it.
The government (the managing authority that we pay for, *not* a kingdom or a theocracy which can claim spiritual or absolute dominion) *does* have an obligation to publish as widely as practical within its budget of our dollars, and I think that right now that means the Net -- with online publishing, we're giving it a "big enough lever" to better use the money exacted from us for its operation. Less horrible stewardship, that is. (Yes, USPTO funding is more complicated, but they do get congressional funding and they are established in the service of the public).
Heh, wish I had time for further response, perhaps later.
Cheers,
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
A coward anonymous wrote: "Public information does not mean everyone gets a free copy of it, just that everyone can peruse it. The fact it was available free online was a gift, not a right."
... does someone in Washington, Alaska have the same right to peruse Patent Office materials as someone in Washington, D.C.? I'd rather seem them close the physical visiting location (if necessary, not that it need be) than exclude for all practical purposes nearly everyone in the country. If it's online, available for downloading as a PDF, that actually does give anyone the ability to peruse it. Does everyone have a computer and an ISP? No -- but available screentime is easier to obtain than a trip to Washington. Public libraries in all of the various towns I've ever lived in (from tiny to humousgous) are now equipped with computers.
Two objections, at least:
1) Define "everyone" in the context of "everyone has a right to peruse it" which I think is a fair paraphrase of what you said there. OK, sticking with citizens of particular countries' own patent offices, and in the U.S.
2) For IBM / Delphion to host that info *is* (and is about to become "was") a gift, not a right. Their online tools are better than the ones offered by the patent office itself, too. But in an age where the information can be put online with a similar application of effort to making it available only in person (and with a lot of other practical advantages too -- say, internal use by patent examiners), I'd say it is the burden of the government we pay for to be transparent unless there is a compelling reason for it not to be. So having that information *is* a right, though whether online is the best place for it may be something we disagree about. The USPTO will probably always be behind private companies in its interface etc (it's underfunded and a part of the government), but yes, the right to the knowledge it produces is shared by every citizen. That's exactly what the Net can allow!
On the other hand, bandwidth charges might be reasonable, to prevent people from simply slurping the info up all day at other taxpayers' expense, but they should be conservative and not exact an undue burden, just enough to cover actual used bandwidth / CPU time.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Ah. So we're seeing one giant step BACKWARDS the past few years, then.
----
Brazil has decided you're cute.
Nope: urbanlegends.com rebuttal.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Actually, the PTO has been supported by user fees for some years now.
As for the issue of providing the patent database free of charge: If the government is going to penalize you for doing X (or enforce third-party civil sanctions against you for doing X), then it incurs an obligation to inform the public of what exactly X is.
Otherwise, the government could do things like incorporate some sort of pay-per-view technology into speed-limit signs. (Perhaps I shouldn't give them ideas....)
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Read the article about obstetric forceps in the April 21 edition of New Scientist. How many women and children died because the inventors of forceps kept them secret for over a century rather than lose the family business by revealing the design? For all its faults, just getting rid of the patent system could make things worse than they are now.
see espacenet for the European patent-office stuff. The interface is a bit stupid, but anyway.
Ahh, I see now.
--
You can use the pat2pdf script to get nicely
formatted pdf formatted patents.
http://www.patentinfo.com/patentinfosearch.htmn t_ search.html (Best of two)
http://www.gibbsgroup.com/patents_etc_cafe/pate
So why didn't I hyperlink it... Because I didnt want to type much nor did I want some retarded goatse.cx forker to ramble on.
Want Root?
The 200 years bit triggered me.
The current numbering scheme started with Pat.Nr. 1 (one). And I admire the clerks at the time there for their humour, by selecting the invention of the 'Wheel' as the first =)
US 1 - Traction Wheels - patented july 13 1836 by Mr. Ruggles!
You're right Guido about the ham frequencies - I could have used a better example, like 3G, MMDS, or other auction-based frequencies that have the commercial rights assigned to a player for a period of time.
I used the amateur example since I figured it'd be more relevant to folks here than the nuances of the commercial world. But your comments are a good reminder that until there is legislation protecting the amateur frequencies from unilateral FCC redesignation, they're at the mercy of the agency.
And also, your post is a good reminder that hams (of which I am one, obviously:-) ) need to keep experimenting with all the frequencies - you never know when one is going to be handy for a future application.
"Make June 23 cm (1.2 GHz) month!"
*scoove*
The Library of Congress is certainly public but this does not mean that every work is available online.
/do/) a way to insert a gene into an apple that gives it fireblight immunity. Let's then put that up in a USPTO Auction and give the commercial rights to the highest bidder.
Fail to read a book before writing your own, and you might miss some entertainment or information. (The likelyhood of you writing the same book that's there is... well... has anyone got a bunch of monkeys and typewriters?)
Fail to read a patent before making/releasing your own invention, and open yourself to significant liabilities.
The same goes for coming up with that awesome product name - failing to search the trademark database and you might end up spending years paying someone else for the damage.
That all said, I think another metaphor might yield better results. Persons who obtain FCC radio licenses (amateur, commercial, etc.) have to study material and pass a test prior to obtaining the license. Even when the test is passed, they still pay an application fee for the license. Patents are a license of a sort - a grant to exclusivity in many ways similar to the purchase of FCC-administered spectrum.
How about an alternate approaches to patents? Since DNA and arguably all other "inventions" existed in nature and were discovered rather than invented, why don't we instead treat them as a public asset and auction them off to the highest bidder?
Say I discover through DNA research (or whatever it is they
Then, we'll take 10% of the winning bid price and give it to me for the discovery. If I want to commercialize it, then I'd better be the highest bidder too (and end up paying myself that 10%, so I have a built-in discount of 10% if I win - fair credit to the inventor).
This process would then *strongly* encourage patent licensees to actually commercialize and use their patent, rather than acquire them only to sqelch use. (I.e. if you can afford $5 billion and not use the technology, you'll probably suffer the consequences).
The bidding process does another thing by putting up a proposed new invention for sale. It allows disclosure of the proposed invention prior to its assignment - something seriously absent in today's process.
Imagine the FCC announcing a planned auction of 144 MHz to 148 MHz - they'd hear very quickly that someone already has that license. That might have a similar effect with respect to these foolish patent give-aways.
*scoove*
How about a library or broadcast TV, they give away information for free, and they have lasted. Maybe not forever, but who really thought you meant FOREVER.
:P
If you know of anything that lasts FOREVER please don't hide it. A discovery this important belongs next to the "Perpetual Motion Machine"
Folks, this is for corporate legal offices, and does not bode well for the struggling entrepreneur or the academic researcher. The speed and versatility of Delphion is like giving the lumber corporations bulldozers and chainsaws while the natives still just have spears. Delphion raises the bar of information availability, but is priced out of the range of those who are most likely to invent the compelling inventions rather than the incremental turf-protecting legal instruments.
I think that by no longer offering this free service, IBM has given everyone a "heads up" on the fact that it really was an "amazing free service" that they were providing. The other thing is that IBM is being responsible to it's shareholders by cutting back on excess costs incurred by providing a service that is already provided for free by the us patent office as already pointed out by countless posts above.
"the" problem. As IANAL nor are 99% of the population here on /. ;access is not the factor limiting the usefullness of a patent library. As someone else mentioned, there is a *.gov point-of-access. However I believe the limiting factor is that the patents themselves, while of a technical nature are still written in lawyer-speak. It would be very usefull to have unlimited access to the DB, but until I finish that bar exam, I'm likely not the most qualified to determine a match. Heck, the people who ARE the most qualified likely still have the means to access it anyway..
No doubt some think me wrong about this.. feel free to express YOUR opinion.
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this is my sig.
Didn't think so.
I don't understand this crowd. One minute, you're all spouting Libertarian rhetoric, the next, you're demanding that others foot the bill.
The records are available. They may not be made in the most convenient form, but the information is available.
If you want everything done for you, someone has to pay for it. If you want the wonderfully formatted patents, pony up the cash. Someone has to foot the bill.
The patent office makes them available, but should our taxes be raised to subsidize everything? People doing patent research can pony up the money and pay for this service.
Has it occured to anyone here that people's time costs money?
I forgot, this is Slashdot. Once you incorporate, you have an obligation to do things for the Slashdot crowd, give them your research, etc.
Give me a break.
There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. TANSTAAFL
Alex
LinuxGram is changing from a free service to a subscription service, too. And on the same day -- June 1.
*sigh* I guess the free days of the Internet are coming to an end...
Super eurobeat from Avex and Konami unite in your DANCE!
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
The USPTO has a patent search here. It is free, and offers patent grants, "full-text since 1976, full-page images since 1790", and pending applications, "published since 15 March 2001".
You have to pay for quality copies, but you always had to do this at IBM. Could someone please post and explain why this service of the goverment is so lacking? Or do people not know about it?
_sig_ is away
The PTO site does return images in TIFF format. AlternaTIFF, a free browser plug-in (Netscape, IE, Opera, Win32) handles them well. Printing works, and gets you a clean, high-quality copy of the patent.
Why not start putting Freenet to the test and start mirroring the patent database into it?
In a way, this could help legitimize the use of Freenet, because while it is easy to demonize kiddie porn and mp3z, it would be harder to demonize a bunch of hackers that were fulfilling a need that should have been satisfied by the US Patent Office. Oh, Freenet has searchable indices now. If I had more than a measly 28.8 dialup connection, I would start mirroring. All we need is a bunch of DSL users to pitch in, pick year intervals for the patents that they will be moving, and each start the mass Freenet insertion.
I don't understand....
You can search for and read patents online at http://www.uspto.gov/main/patents.htm
Where's the problem ?
Admittedly they do charge for the nicely formatted PDF or paper versions, but it's not that bad...
They can't. I have a business method patent on patenting patent search engines. Between that and my two-click ordering patent, I should be rich. ;)
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
I've found that the actual patent document only tells a small part of the patent-saga. More revealing is the patent's file wrapper - a hefty folder (or in the case of some software patents, not so hefty) kept by the PTO that contains official correspondence between the inventor (or inventor's representatives, i.e. lawyers) and the patent examiner.
By scrutinizing documents in the file wrapper, you can discern the amount of effort put in by the examiner, the examiner's conception of related prior art (which might, unsurprisingly, be quite limited), and whether or not the original claims were rejected/amended.
While the patent itself might be freely accessible, expect to pay the PTO for access to the patent's documentation.
Vergil Bushnell
Insects and Grafitti Photos
the old bait and switch eh? strangely sadistic in a pull-the-dollar-on-a-string-away-from-the-starving -bum kind of way. but in reality it's just good business.
"Ask me about Loom"
http://ipdl.wipo.int.
http://ep.espacenet.com
I have spent hundreds of hours searching the www.patents.ibm.com website. By operating the website IBM generated a lot of goodwill, which is defined as the favor or prestige that a business has acquired beyond the mere value of what it sells. I guess goodwill isn't worth what it used to be.
Frylock: That's not a toy!
Master Shake: You say that about everything you own. You should own toys. They're fun.
Software patents are abhorrent to me insofar as all patentable software is pure math (algorithms - data like text and graphics are copyrightable expressions, but not patentable). To patent software is to grant a government-enforced monopoly on a set of mathematical operations to a person or group.
Yes, that means if you perform or cause to be performed a set of mathematical operations that someone else has patented, and are discovered, men with guns will come and stop you. Only the patent holders (and licensees, if applicable) are allowed to do this math; because it's a patent, it doesn't matter if you derived these mathematical operations independently or not.
It's hard for me to articulate the degree to which I feel this represents an unconsionable hindrance in the advancement of human understanding. What does society gain by having the government say who may perform what mathematical operations by beaurocratic fiat?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
No one who wants to protect their intellectual property - including their right to give it away - should use the IBM patent server. Do you really want to let the world's most aggressive pursuer and licenser of patents see your query...? Dave say, what's this about needing a sig to avoid losing your last line?
So why didn't I hyperlink it... Because I didnt want to type much...
Granted, the US Patent and Trademark office is presently quite searchable, and these searches are for free. But if they could not be available for no cost, the model they should follow is that of the United States' Federal Court's Public Access to Court Records (PACER) system. Note this is an explicit congestion notification impaired link, so shut TCP ECN off if you wish to go there.
The PACER system charges for searches and retreival of court documents. The rate is presently seven cents per "page" (about 50 lines of monospaced text, more or less), or sixty cents per minute if you dial an 800 number with a modem. Most Federal Courts are online and searchable.
Given the large amount of work that goes into putting huge amounts of data online like patents and court records, a minor fee likely is approriate for accessing these records. As long as it isn't prohibitive to the common person, paying on the order of micropayments for access to data is not such a bad idea.
Do they hold the business case patent on charging for access to business case patents??? (Uh-oh... I feel a stack fence coming!)
Can patents be copyrighted like laws?
The reaction to this strikes me as another good example of the "everything on the web should be free" mentality.
Where is it such a crime for these people to start charging for access? I think all of us would agree that the people who maintain this database deserve to be compensated for their work. That salary has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?
And the storage space for all the patent information. The hardware (disks, cpu, etc.) that's not free is it?
I don't know what IBM's business model was when they were running it but you can be assured that IBM doesn't give stuff away; somehow they saw this database as a benefit to themselves.
Onorio Catenacci
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"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
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"And that's the world in a nutshell -- an appropriate receptacle."
-- Stan Dunn
Didn't a director of the US patent office resign in the 1890's because "there is nothing left to invent"?
I could provide references to this but...
Out of Caffine Error, Operator Halted!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
...licenses or contracts prohibiting the reverse engineering of goods sold.
Kinda like the DMCA, right? Oh... the DMCA applies EVEN WITH patent laws. Interesting.
My other car is first.
On the bright side, the collected work of the patent database wasn't copyrighted (I wonder if it could have been...)
I wonfer about copyrighting the layout and display characteristics of a patent search engine...
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Even though the government website made all patents online, Dolpheon probably can charge for better searching and datamining of the patent database. There is quite a bit data there and quality of search results are important. Especially for a patent database search is the most important part of it. Maybe google can do something about this. All patents have references to other patents. Google should be able to apply their link weighting algorithm here, and they might make some money out of this.
Now we have to pay to see if simple ideas are legal to come up with and produce.
What's next? Delphion will probably patent their patent-searching engine. =)
But as a public office, it seems reasonable to me that the USPTO be required to make their patent files, well .. public, actually.
I got a better idea. Close down the Patent Office and revoke all patents. That would solve the problem. Trademarks are something else though. They are part of of someone's or some company's identity. Still I think the kind of stuff that people are allowed to trademark are ludicrous.
You can search through patent info at the U.S. patent office
I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, oh, wait...
sorry, incorrect link. Here is the correct link at U.S. patent office
I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, I wish I had a sig, oh, wait...
Even if it was just for internal document management purposes, it would be cheaper for the US government to scan documents than to route them around in paper form. A fast Internet connection costs a significant amount of money when purchased in the free market, but the US government has negotiated contracts for free Internet services based on giving companies access to public infrastructure to put in fiber, etc., and the cost to Internet providers is small.
In comparison, the cost of maintaining large public buildings with huge amounts of publically accessible paper records, plus the staff to maintain them, is very high.
So, no, altogether, I don't see why access to public records over the Internet should cost any money. Even if such access is provided in addition to the physical locations, the incremental cost is tiny. And if such access is provided to replace some physical locations, we could save a lot of money. It is time for the US government to stop thinking of computerized access as a luxury and to start thinking of it as a way to make more public records available to more people at a lower cost.
Without this online resource, what will Jeff Bezos do?
Patent Information Users Group
IP Australia
US Patent & Trademark Office (UPSTO)
European Patent Office
for a few
Great minds must run in clumps. patent information IS available for free searching. The Patent Office IS self-funded by patent fees, and in fact turns over a surplus to the US Govt. most years. You CAN find out all this information by looking at the pto web site first before firing off information-free comments. But where's the fun in that, eh?
Our patent image archives include US, EPO, WIPO, British, French, German, Japanese, and Swiss patents. The patents are distributed in the hyper-compressed CPC format, which averages only 1/6th the size of the legacy TIFF or PDF files used by other services. This means that the images download 6 times faster. And, all of the patent pages are distributed in a single file. This means you can print, copy, or email the entire document with a single command.
If you are interested, you can register for a free 5 patent guest account by visiting http://www.GetThePatent.com/Subscribe/?Topic=Guest .
Alternatively, the EPO offers free access to all US utility patents issued since 1920. The patents are distributed as single-page PDF files. Non-utility patents are not available.