[3997] in cryptography@c2.net mail archive
Re: How to put info in the public domain for patent puropses?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Arnold G. Reinhold)
Mon Jan 18 13:13:19 1999
In-Reply-To: <E101EUm-0007R5-00@heaton.cl.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1999 04:10:16 -0500
To: Markus Kuhn <Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk>
From: "Arnold G. Reinhold" <reinhold@world.std.com>
Cc: cryptography@c2.net
Markus' approach is interesting, though not inexpensive enough to meet my
needs.
I have another concern, however. My understanding (from some time ago) is
that the US Patent and Trademark Office can classify under our Espionage
Laws any cryptographic invention that the NSA does not want made public.
That, if I got the story right, is why RSA was only patented in the US.
The invention had to be published first to preclude NSA classification. US
patent law allows patents to be filed up to one year after publication, but
in most other countries prior publication makes patents unobtainable.
Deos anyone know if USPTO classification is still an issue? Are US crypto
inventors still following the publish-first approach?
Arnold Reinhold
At 7:01 PM +0000 1999-1-15, Markus Kuhn wrote:
>"Arnold G. Reinhold" wrote on 1999-01-14 05:07 UTC:
>> If I recall correctly, the US Patent and Trademark Office has said that i=
t
>> would not consider information placed on the Internet to be published for
>> patent purposes. Preparoing papers for journals or conferences is a pain,
>> takes months to be published and runs the risk of rejection.
>>
>> Is there a low hassle, inexpensive way to place a crypto invention into t=
he
>> public domain for patent purposes?
>
>The by far most reliable way of putting something into the public domain
>for patent purposes is to write it up, file it as a patent application,
>pay for the preliminary search such that the patent application becomes
>published after 18 months, and then just let expire the deadline for
>paying the fee for the final search and examination that would grant you
>the actual patent.
>
>This way, you ensure that your patent is fully indexed in all the
>databases that patent examiners will use all over the world, you are
>guaranteed to get an immediate, proper, legally binding, and published
>priority date, and in addition you even get a preliminary search report
>that will tell you with some reliability about whether there were any
>existing patent applications published prior to yours that covers some
>of your claims.
>
>This way does cost a bit, but it has the advantage that as a side effect
>you will get through the preliminary search report some certainty about
>whether your technique really is still in the public domain and has not
>been patented before.
>
>You don't have to hire an expensive patent lawyer and all the other
>stuff; the only somewhat annoying aspect is that you have to fulfill a
>few formal requirements on how your patent application is structured
>(with a claims section, etc.).
>
>Going through these stages costs =A3 155 per application here in the UK,
>which is what paying for a search to find out whether your idea is new
>would cost at least anyway.
>
><http://www.patent.gov.uk/dpatents/howprep.html>
>
>Markus
>
>--
>Markus G. Kuhn, Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, UK
>Email: mkuhn at acm.org, WWW: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>
