On Fri, 2006-06-23 at 11:52 -0500, Mikkel L. Ellertson wrote: > > > > I don't see a solution there... Either a company patents it now as a > > protective measure or they let someone else do it. Either way > > it might end up owned by someone else later. What's the alternative? > > Do you expect the patent office to suddenly start doing their job > > and disallowing patents that are obvious or mathematical algorithms? > > > There is one - publish it without patenting it. Then it is prier > art, and can not be patented. You may still end up in court, but it > makes it fairly easy to defend yourself when you can produce a > publication of the application that the other company says infringes > on their patent that predates their patent. But that opens the door to small variations that others can still attempt to patent. For example the only real difference in the (now expired) RSA patent that was granted early on in this mess and a prior version was the use of prime numbers as factors. -- Les Mikesell lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
