Hi there, > >>A question about patents. Is putting something on the web enough to > >>prevent someone patenting it, or could someone download my plug-in and > >>then patent the algorithm? (I don't have the original mail anymore...) > The best thing I can think of is to have a copy of the source code > notarized and stored in a safe-deposit box. You could mail it to > yourself, but a notarization is probably stronger legally (because the > notary can testify). > > A copyright registration might not be sufficient since you're not > required to deposit the full source code for a TX Unpub registration. > It would provide evidence of prior art, at least; whether it would be > sufficient, I can't say. Ask a patent lawyer. I would go for the "Eternal logfile", run by Lutz Donnerhacke. See http://www.iks-jena.de/mitarb/lutz/logfile/ for more information. (In short, it's a logfile which is secured by several hash functions and these hashes are made public once in a while so everything you write to it cannot be altered later without noticing. So you just submit an MD5 sum of your source to the logfile with a comment stating what it is and whom it belongs to.) HTH! Tino. -- * LINUX - Where do you want to be tomorrow? *
