OASIS Mailing List ArchivesView the OASIS mailing list archive below
or browse/search using MarkMail.

 


Help: OASIS Mailing Lists Help | MarkMail Help

chairs message

[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]


Subject: RE: [chairs] Of un-patents and un-inventions


Title: [chairs] Of un-patents and un-inventions
Despite the emotive force of the term "un-invention", it is a horribly inaccurate term, because it would be inventive, and that would cause considerable confusion. Note that I'm not objecting to the term "un-patent" (unwieldy though it is).
 
May I suggest you try out other terms like "open invention", or "freely reusable idea" (could be abbreviated to FRI)?
 
"I want to lodge an un-patent"
"You want FRIs with that?"
 
:-)
 
-----Original Message-----
From: David Webber (XML) [mailto:david@drrw.info]
Sent: Mon 14-Mar-05 16:02
To: Chairs OASIS
Cc:
Subject: [chairs] Of un-patents and un-inventions

One of the underlying threads with the current OASIS IPR policies
seems to be this notion of protection from the boogeyman of
USPTO patents.

But what if instead of passively waiting for the boogeyman to
come - we created a wall of preemptive strikes?  Attack afterall
is the best means of defense.  Filing USPTO patents is not an
option as that merely falls into the same bear trap that we
are trying to avoid in the first place.

It suddenly occurred to me - that creating un-patents and un-inventing
is entirely possible - and indeed we could create a review board
and repository to receive these.  These would be a powerful antidote
to any possible future claims - and also make nice references for
the OASIS specifications to cite the un-invention and un-patent.

Notice I have two issued USPTO patents that I filed some years
back - so I'm very familiar with the regular patent process.

In the course of any given year I probably have 10 or 15 notions that
would be highly "patentable" - and if I worked for Microsoft or IBM
I'm sure they would file them.  Many times these ideas simply
end up as part of the embodiment of an OASIS specification,
because they are part of the process of developing the specification.

Example - the work I've just done on a trusted voting process:
http://drrw.net/backup/Trusted-Ballot-Processing-Nutshell.pdf

The irritating thing about this situation is that some twit could file a
USPTO patent based on some variation of an idea that had become
public - and then hold a whole community hostage around that - or
so the theory goes anyway - and we seem to be convinced that
this boogeyman is real enough to warrent IPR policies and
enforcement, and declarations and what not.  But if we had
an un-invention mechanism - anyone who had any concerns
could simply put together an un-invention statement and file
that to the un-invention repository.  Also - an un-invention is
by its nature a lot easier to draft - stating what it is that you
are un-inventing - and why you feel its an un-invention - such
as stating that the whole thing is clearly self-evident and
reliant on prior work (within OASIS would be nice!) - and
notions that are already publicly known (such as in specifications
or the un-invention repository).

And just as the USPTO issues patents - an authorative body such
as OASIS could receive un-patents and un-inventions, have
peer review boards review same for accuracy and completeness -
and then log them into a Kavi for public access.

The beauty of this - since its an un-invention - its does not matter
if someone else already has another un-invention that is broadly
similar, that merely reinforces the un-invention again.  This makes
the review boards job much easier.  They don't need to worry
about prior art - et al - just that the un-invention makes technical
sense.

Since the USPTO does not seem to ever read public specifications
or open sourced licensed components - this would also give the
USPTO a convenient means to check the un-invention
registry on Kavi before taking the stupid step of issue one of
their own software invention licenses.

So OK - I'm dreaming that OASIS would ever do this - or the
W3C - but certainly someone elsewhere could - and probably
the EU for one would be a great potential home from an
un-invention repository.

OK - shoot this idea down for me!?!

DW










[Date Prev] | [Thread Prev] | [Thread Next] | [Date Next] -- [Date Index] | [Thread Index] | [List Home]