I can verify that Netscape 4.75 on Redhat 6.2 crashes on my 128Mb RAM Dell Pentium II crashes frequently and clicking its address book is a guaranteed crash.
Yes, thanks, the SIR exists. But reading the form (sb0094.pdf), it appears that this is an add-on to a regular patent-filing, so the costs and difficulty are at least slightly higher with the SIR. i therefore don't quite understand the motivation for filing this (though maybe the patent issue fee is waived). After all, you are not req'd to enforce a patent if it's granted to you, it's just an option. I think that what Mr Malamud is proposing is a way to inexpensively file antipatents (the utility patent app filing is currently $345).
Richard Stallman of the FSF has written that building a library of prior art (similar to an antipatent concept) to stem the tide of software patents is a bad idea because it actually makes invalidating bad patents harder. Because the patent applicant can't take into account what he doesn't know, he can usually be effectively ambushed after he files an obvious idea when prior art is found.
Fairly obvious aside: For an antipatent system to work, the paperwork burden and cost of filing need to be low. The standards for the text of the filing would need to be easy for any literate english speaker. I've filed a patent and at $345 just for the filing, few will pay it w/o economic incentive. But if an employee at the PTO is going to read an "antipatent", poke, prod and categorize it, i'm not sure how low the fee can go.
I've been all over the patent office website (uspto.gov) this past year (filing two patent apps) and never came across a SIR. Are you sure about this?
I tried to check just now but searching is down at the PTO:
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but this search feature has been temporarily disabled while we address performance issues. We do not anticipate restoration of this site search feature until after 9/4/2000." -- http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/ptoindex.htm
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I can verify that Netscape 4.75 on Redhat 6.2 crashes on my 128Mb RAM Dell Pentium II crashes frequently and clicking its address book is a guaranteed crash.
Yes, thanks, the SIR exists. But reading the form (sb0094.pdf), it appears that this is an add-on to a regular patent-filing, so the costs and difficulty are at least slightly higher with the SIR. i therefore don't quite understand the motivation for filing this (though maybe the patent issue fee is waived). After all, you are not req'd to enforce a patent if it's granted to you, it's just an option. I think that what Mr Malamud is proposing is a way to inexpensively file antipatents (the utility patent app filing is currently $345).
Fairly obvious aside: For an antipatent system to work, the paperwork burden and cost of filing need to be low. The standards for the text of the filing would need to be easy for any literate english speaker. I've filed a patent and at $345 just for the filing, few will pay it w/o economic incentive. But if an employee at the PTO is going to read an "antipatent", poke, prod and categorize it, i'm not sure how low the fee can go.
I tried to check just now but searching is down at the PTO:
"We apologize for the inconvenience, but this search feature has been temporarily disabled while we address performance issues. We do not anticipate restoration of this site search feature until after 9/4/2000." -- http://www.uspto.gov/web/menu/ptoindex.htm