Peter_Gutmann@kcbbs.gen.nz (Peter Gutmann) (04/14/91)
First of all I'd like to thank everyone who replied - there was such a flood
of mail that I thought I'd better post a public "thankyou" rather than send
out thousands of individual thankyou notes :->.
Anyway, here's a (brief) summary of all the replies:
The basic message I got from *everybody* was: Publish it it with as wide a
circulation as possible. The main idea is to be able to prove that you
thought of it before anyone else did. You can then cite it as "prior art"
and no patents filed by others after the date of publication will be
granted. Publication on the Usenet may be enough, but the ideal thing would
be to put it in something like a journal or conference proceedings (I know
from personal experience however that articles can often spend *years* in the
pipeline before they get published). If two people try to patent the same
thing, whoever can produce the earliest dated publication (from a reputable
source) wins. Even something like putting an ad in a newspaper should be
admissible (and a lot faster than putting it in a journal).
When you publish your idea, make it as general as possible to avoid some
clever lawyer convincing a judge somewhere that X's invention isn't the same
as yours and that it's a non-obvious improvement. The more things you list
in detail, the less things X can "invent" later since you've got proof you
already thought of them.
Finally, if someone tries to patent/copyright/whatever a derivative work from
what you've done, sue their butts off (or threaten to).
If you don't want to put the idea in the public domain, the only thing to do
is patent/copyright it and use this to fight off others.
Thanks again for your replies...
Peter.