[Corpora-List] Patent application for "Referent tracking of portions of reality"

[John F. Sowa]

On 8/31/2010 3:25 AM, Alan Rector wrote:
> Have you brought this to the attention of W3C?
> Any similar organisation that might have the clout to fight it.

Do you or anybody else know a simple way to do that?

On 8/31/2010 3:41 AM, Laurence Anthony wrote:
> I haven't read the patent details but I would expect that they use
> some niche technology that hasn't been reported before. In that sense,
> the patent application would be valid. In fact, there are many, many
> patented natural language processing systems that are all quite
> similar. Patent writing is an art and the whole world of patent law is
> very fuzzy and complex.

Those statements are mostly true, but there is a question about the
word 'valid'.  It is common for patent lawyers to describe an invention
and the claims in terminology that is deliberately "obfuscated" to
confuse the patent officer who reviews it.  They frequently succeed
because the patent office is overloaded with applications, and POs
can't have adequate training in every aspect of every field for
which applications are submitted.

For patents of physical objects and processes, the reviewer's task
is often easier.  The terminology for describing an object is less
significant than the drawings, and there is standard terminology
for the chemical elements and compounds.

But you can change the names of all the variables and rewrite all
the comments in a program, and every variation will compute exactly
the same results.  If somebody is granted a software patent, they
can threaten to sue anybody who uses an algorithm that is provably
equivalent.

Prior publication is sufficient protection.  If you publish something
prior to the date of a patent application, anything that is described
in the publication is protected.  But it's important to describe your
software with the same terminology used in the publications.  That
makes it easier to defend against some patent that uses weird words.

> But, I think we can relax and continue working in corpus linguistics
> without worrying too much about it. It only  becomes important when
> you take a new technology to a company and try to sell or license it.

That may be true, but researchers need funding for frivolous things
like food, shelter, and clothing.  Sources that provide funding
might be less willing to support projects that use technology
that is threatened by patents.

John

_______________________________________________
Corpora mailing list
Corpora at uib.no
http://mailman.uib.no/listinfo/corpora