🚀 go-pugleaf

I was just following the thread in comp.windows.x about Michael Chen's
Virtual Sphere Controllers stuff and its possible pending patent. (It is a
rather nice technique, BTW. Chen posted some Mac code a year or so ago that
demonstrates it very well. But I digress.)

John Spackman responded that PRIME uses the same technique in their MEDUSA
CAD/CAM package, which has been available for several years, and that he had
used it in his post-grad work over four years ago.

It seems that much of the patent nonsense might be nipped in the bud if
there was some mechanism for the patent attorneys at the USPO to see what's
travelling about the net. It is one more source of information. If PRIME and
Spackman did not patent the technique, they might unwittingly grant a patent
(or at least grant one containing some invalid claims) that will have to be
fought in court in the future. Assuming Spackman is correct, how can his
statement(s) be injected into the patent process? Armed with that
information, it might not take long for an attorney to check if and when
PRIME had similar functionality in their software.

Think of it as engineering techniques applied to patents. It costs orders of
magnitude less to fix a bug during the requirements or design phase of a
software project than it does once the product is in the field.  Similarly,
it would cost less (both public and private sector dollars) to refuse to
grant a patent than to fight it once it's been granted.

Of course, it's the patent attorney's job to know what's out there. I can't
help but think that Usenet and similar information systems have passed the
USPO by, however.

--
Skip (montanaro@crdgw1.ge.com)