🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <58285@dime.cs.umass.edu> connolly@piglet.cs.umass.edu (Christopher Ian Connolly) writes:
>
>Let's face it, people simply are not going to comb through tens of
>thousands of technical reports (or at least titles) per year from all
>the organizations that do research in a given field in the hopes of
>finding the very first mention of an idea.
>

I agree, but when the author of the TR ("A") sends author "B" a copy
of the TR and says "please reference my work in future papers," does
"B" has an obligation to abide by these wishes? Moreso than if an
author "C" approaches "B" and says "we thought about this in our lab
years ago, and have documentation to prove it, but we thought it was
not worth publishing in any format; please reference us with an
(unpublished observation) footnote" ?

These things actually happen, I'm not making them up ... its all part
of the slippery slope of intellectual priority (and for patentable
technologies, intellectual property). And with electronic TR's on FTP
sites, the waters muddy even more.