Subject: Re: Funny Patents From: Erik Naggum <erik@naggum.no> Date: 1998/10/06 Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp Message-ID: <3116664550475381@naggum.no> * Pierre Mai <pmai@acm.org> | But the problem with all these patent claims is, that once they are | granted, you have to defend yourself in court against them. And even | tons of prior-art will get you nothing, because often the cost of | litigation is too high to even try this. the solution should then be to have the claimant defend himself against proof of prior art presented to the patent office. as the patent system is today, patents reward those who steal ideas and patent them first, not those who develop them. a decent society should have ways to make amends for such travesties of justice without cost to the offended party. #:Erik