keeping patentable algorithm free

[Jean-Paul Smets]

Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> 
>    Date: Fri, 30 Jul 1999 09:43:04 -0400
>    From: John Cowan <cowan at locke.ccil.org>
> 
>    Ian Lance Taylor wrote:
> 
>    > One easy and relatively inexpensive way to publish an algorithm with a
>    > legally verifiable date in the U.S. is to register it with the
>    > U.S. copyright office.  You can send them a program listing, and they
>    > will basically file it with a timestamp.
> 
>    Sorry, not enough.  For patent purposes, the invention must be
>    described in openly available literature.  Registration with a
>    government agency doesn't cut it, as nobody (in practice) can obtain
>    the listing.  Publication on Usenet or the Web serves the necessary
>    purposes: the algorithm must be *available* to persons learned in
>    the art.
> 
> Yes, you do need to do more than merely register it with the copyright
> office, and you are correct to point that out.  I assumed that that
> had already been taken care of in this case since the algorithm in
> question is part of a free software package.
> 
> However, as far as I know, publication on Usenet or the Web rarely
> provides a legally verifiable date.  It's not like an appearance in a
> published magazine.  I suppose you could try subpoenaing the records
> of deja.com or google.com.
> 
> Ian

Here is the answers from what I understand

There are 2 problems

1- Prove that you are the first inventor

In order to do so, you need something which gives you an official date.
A simple way to do that is to register with any kind of copyrigh office.
There are other protections. In France, you can send some kind of sealed
envelope (enveloppe Soleau) to the Patent office. They will make a whole
in the middle and never open it. It can be used as a very strong proof
in case of trial.

There are other ways to get the same result. This has been used by AT&T.
Take an article describing your invention. Compute an MD5 code from it.
Then publish a list of MD5 codes in any newspaper. Even better : compute
a big MD5 code from a list of MD5 codes and publish it as a classified
(that's really cheap).

Being the first inventor in the US enables to cancel a patent filed by
someone else later (first to invent principle)
Being the first inventor in Europe anables to use the process in case
someone else files a patent later but does not allow to cancel it (first
to file principle)

2- Make a document public

Well, this is much easier actually. Just print the document and go to
your local library. Give it to them and get some paper to prove later
that you gave the document to your local library. If the title of the
document includes some MD5 number, it makes it easier to proove that the
content was what is is intended to be in case the local library loses
the document.

This trick is used quite often by multinational companies which go to
Senegal (Africa) and put some kind of book, which looks normal outside
but actually includes some secret patentable process, in very small
libraries. The intent of such behavior is to keep things secret (patents
force to publish), while still being protected in case someone gets a
patent later. Because the document is public (a library is public), the
process it decsribes will be considered as public prior art and any
patent filed on the process will be cancelled in case of trial.

There is a famous story saying that one day, Sony, Philips and Thomson
representatives went the same day at a local library in the belgian
countryside to ask the librart manager to certify that a certain article
was displayed in the library a certain day.

Jean-Paul.
webmaster of freepatents.org and other sites

PS. MD5 is a coding technique which generates a big number from a long
article. It is very hard to generated a different article with same MD5
number.
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