Newsgroups: sci.crypt
Path: msuinfo!caen!sdd.hp.com!think.com!paperboy.osf.org!osf.org!karger
From: karger@osf.org (Paul A. Karger)
Subject: Re: VCR+ code question: Was it cracked and legal action taken?
Message-ID: <1992Jan9.204038.21573@osf.org>
Sender: news@osf.org (USENET News System)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
References: <1992Jan8.214949.4367@news.cs.brandeis.edu> <13806@oasys.dt.navy.mil> <1992Jan09.175040.12321nagle@netcom.COM> <1992Jan9.184540.4072@qualcomm.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Jan 1992 20:40:38 GMT
Lines: 19

In article <1992Jan9.184540.4072@qualcomm.com>, karn@chicago.qualcomm.com (Phil Karn) writes:

|> If recent history is any guide, this isn't likely. Nowadays if you
|> have the money, you can get a patent on virtually anything -- trivial
|> or complex, nonobvious, obvious, useful or not useful, original or not
|> original.  The Patent Office's policy is apparently to grant virtually
|> every patent application (after some random period of meaningless
|> "review") and let the courts sort it out.

Having personally been through the patent process several times, the Patent Office's review policy is definitely NOT as leniant as you describe.  They
push back quite hard with various pieces of possible prior art.  Getting a
patent application approved is certainly not trivial, and the review period
is not meaningless.

That does not mean that the Patent Office always grants patents properly. 
Quite the contrary, there have been some commonly cited patents that probably
shouldn't have issued.   However, the Patent Office is trying to weed out
the bad applications, and does apply a meaningful review of prior art, at least
in some circumstances.
