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is there a place to contribute prior art?

is there a place to contribute prior art?

Posted Feb 26, 2009 1:38 UTC (Thu) by stevenj (guest, #421)
In reply to: is there a place to contribute prior art? by stevenj
Parent article: Microsoft sues TomTom

Actually, if I remember correctly, in the US you can file up to a year after disclosing your invention in public, so one actually needs prior art before 9/10/1998 to be airtight. But one of the press articles I already quoted was from before that, and it seems clear that finding even earlier examples should not be difficult.

The really pathetic one is the Fortune article citing Microsoft on this topic from 7 September 1998, more than a year before they filed for the patent on their "invention"!


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Filing after publication (in the US and *not* in thee EU)

Posted Feb 26, 2009 2:45 UTC (Thu) by dps (subscriber, #5725) [Link]

In the EU any publication, which is broadly defined, prior to the filing date makes it impossible to obtain a patent, period. This is why RSA was never patented anywhere in the EU. There can be no doubt about the inventive steps and non-obviousness of RSA.

I believe the only thing the US allows is for those filing to exclude material they published themselves. If anyone else substantially discloses their invention prior to the filing date then that is prior art (and grounds for the patent application to be refused).

A fortune article prior to the filing date is probably sufficient unless Microsoft can somehow proved they published that. I suspect this is impossible even in Microsoft's universe.

Filing after publication (in the US and *not* in thee EU)

Posted Feb 26, 2009 19:13 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]

There can be no doubt about the inventive steps and non-obviousness of RSA.

That is maybe how you perceive that work, but there is plenty of material in the "History" section of the Wikipedia article on public-key cryptography (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-key_cryptography) to make a sound argument against granting monopolies on such works, let alone doing so in a near-arbitrary way based on the vagaries of some patent regime or other.

Filing after publication (in the US and *not* in thee EU)

Posted Feb 27, 2009 15:20 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

Don't forget ... RSA had been *in* *use* for *seven* years before the patent was applied for.

GCHQ had been using it for secret-agent communications that long ...

Cheers,
Wol

is there a place to contribute prior art?

Posted Mar 4, 2009 14:54 UTC (Wed) by fieroboom (guest, #56956) [Link]

Found a CarPC created in '87 based on an Atari game system:
http://www.dellabarba.com/ibug/FirstPC.html
-Paul

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