Re: [IWAR] Xerox Disclosure Journal

From: almat_private
Date: Tue Dec 23 1997 - 13:42:36 PST

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    >
    >It's difficult for me to see this your way.  It seems
    >to me that they're publishing things that they do,
    >whether or not they've invented them, so that there's
    >an easy reference of "prior art" to ensure that their
    >techniques aren't patented by others.  How is this
    >"IWAR"?  How is it "destructive"?  Patents aren't
    >intended to give protection to things that *others*
    >are already doing; how does this keep "others from
    >actually doing it" and what is the "it" - inventing?
    >It seems to me that this is to prevent others from
    >trying to patent something that they didn't "invent"
    >first - which means it's not legally patentable
    >anyway.  Could you expound upon your concern?
    
    
    In part the post reads:
    
    >
    > In most industrial foreign countries, a publication of an invention
    >anywhere in the world serves to bar any person from filing an application
    >on that same invention after such publication.  .  .
    
    While I am quite certain Xerox uses this properly, it is quite possible to
    use it improperly.  For example,
    Someone wanting to control the future of a given technology could set up
    their company (even a dummy) and then publish items for what would be the
    next logical steps in the area.  They could then either slow that
    development drasticly or hold the ideas for a type of ransom.   The
    "invention" does not have to actually exist.  The post goes on to say:
    
    >Accordingly, Xerox, like several other large R&D corporations, publishes
    >on the SUBJECT MATTER of inventions which it MIGHT use in the future but
    >for which patent protection is not warranted.
    
    It does not say these inventions exist.
    
    
    The applications of this technique go far beyond computer chips and
    photocopies. A hostile country (working behind a front company) could
    publish what are simply ideas for weaponry -- from laser cannons to
    biochips. Most weaponry is R&D stuff that comes out of private companies
    and not from the military or other government entities. They are not going
    to pursue anything they can't patent or make money on.
    



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