Looking at the final office actions from some of my own applications I absolutely agree with Steve here. It is pretty clear that the only database that the USPTO can search effectively is its own. One of the reasons I file patents is to smoke out patent claims filed by others. The USPTO is the most effective method available. Compared to the expense of a patent lawsuit the cost is negligible. > -----Original Message----- > From: Steven M. Bellovin [mailto:smb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Monday, October 29, 2007 7:49 PM > To: lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx > Cc: ietf@xxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Patents can be for good, not only evil > > On Mon, 29 Oct 2007 16:02:10 -0700 > "Lawrence Rosen" <lrosen@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > Eric Burger wrote: > > > I specifically applied for patents underlying the > technology behind > > > RFC 4722/RFC 5022 and RFC 4730 specifically to prevent third > > > parties, who are not part of the IETF process, from extracting > > > royalties from someone who implements MSCML or KPML. > > > > That was a waste of your time and money. Publication of those > > inventions by you, at zero cost to you and others, would have been > > sufficient to prevent someone else from trying to patent them. Next > > time, get good advice from a patent lawyer on how to achieve your > > goals without paying for a patent. > > > > You're obviously right in theory on this point. I wonder > whether you're right in practice. We've all seen far too > many really bad patents issued, ones where prior art is > legion. The (U.S.) patent office seems to do a far better > job of searching its own databases than it does the technical > literature. > > I know there are many philosophical reasons why many people > oppose software patents. But for others, there are very > practical reasons: > there are too many bad patents issued. I think we can all > agree that stopping bad patents is a worthwhile goal, even if > for some it's just an intermediate goal. > > > --Steve Bellovin, http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~smb > > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www1.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf