4 Aug
2002
4 Aug
'02
7:53 a.m.
On Sat, 3 Aug 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
How can someone have patented prior art? That's a
neat trick.
By relying on the patent examiner not being familiar with the prior art.
IBM, for example, got a patent on defining an area of the screen (for
scrolling, coloring, etc.) by putting the coordinates of the upper left
corner in one 16 bit register, and the coordinates of the lower right in
another 16 bit register (look at Int 10h, functions 6 and 7)
Well, I understand how they could have patented it,
but how can that
possibly be enforced if it was based on someone elses prior published
work? Unless they tweaked it a little, but anyway...
Finding well documented prior art is the best first step for overturning a
bogus patent.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin(a)xenosoft.com