🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <970032@gore.com> jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) writes:
>
>	The techniques presented by this article are covered by
>	U.S. Patent #123,456,789.  Contact the third author for
>	licensing details.
>Can you offer an ethically justifiable reason for avoiding such notices?

I can offer a very practical one. Typically the article is prepared at
about the same time as the patent application. THe article takes from 6
months to a year to be published, the patent typically one to two years
to issue. Until the patent issues you don't know (a) if it ever WILL
issue or (b) the patent number. The old dodge use to be the "patent
pending" notice which was abolished around 30 years ago (don't have the
actual date).

I agree that some form of a notice would indeed be nice, and that would
likely be a good change to make. It would have to avoid the pitfalls of
the old system though. "pat. pending" was as good as a patent so
applications got strung out for 10-20 years, illegally extending the life
of the patent. Some of the software patents that are causing so much
upset got the same treatment since they weren't a lot of use until they
became popular.

-- 
           *Mike Waters    AA4MW/7  waters@nddsun1.sps.mot.com *
If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?