Re: Subdomain Patent Sparks Concerns

<LPF President Hat>

The article wasn't quite accurate:

"Business method patents that cover software programs weren't legal until 
a few years ago," Dicig says, "so there is no comprehensive way for the 
PTO to search for software and computer-related technology that's already 
been invented, other than that described in patents and published 
applications. For instance, if the patent office didn't know about 
WordPerfect 1, it could issue a patent on word processing because it has 
no way to know that word processing was already invented."

While finding prior art is hard problem in any field, it would be helpful
if the Patent Office hired more experts in the fields that they offer
patents in, and in particular, more computer scientists.  The patent
office is supposed to have staff that is familiar with the field. I.e., it
is __supposed__ to have someone who would reasonably know about
WordPerfect 1.  The (or rather *a*) problem is, they don't.

Such patents as this are clearly mistakes, and are frequently overturned
on review. There is a process for handling such mistakes, and they can be
fixed later, so really, the PTO bears only a certain amount of criticism
for granting such obvious patents.  These mistakes don't really bother me
too much.

What concerns me more is the genuinely inventive and novel ideas that are
either out there now that we may already be using but haven't yet paid
for. or the ones waiting in the future.  Its not the crazy patents that
are the problem. Its the good ones.  Waiting like time bombs for the