[ih] Off topic: patents and public stewardship

[Bob Purvy]

> Internet Drafts *are* prior art.  Didn't you see Scott's note where he
said they've been used in patent cases?

yes, John, I did see that. However, I've been involved in lots of patent
litigation and prosecution cases, and "prior art" as a concept has
loopholes. It's not open-and-shut. Clever lawyers can drive a truck through
them. A couple vignettes:

1) In that German case
<https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-patent-may-block-google-maps-in-germany/>
I mentioned, this publication
<https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=e1d9f9d615473c13859761ddc12a6f2eb6071522>
that I found was the death of Microsoft's patent. Since it was not itself a
patent, Google had the burden of establishing that it *was* available on
the date we cited. We had a librarian at UCSD (I think) certify that it was
shelved as of that date, and unfortunately Dr. DeWitt had joined Microsoft!
Their press release announcing it even cited this paper.  Were their faces
red!

2) I watched a mock jury deliberate a patent case, where prior art was in
question. One juror said words to the effect "How could the PTO know about
this? It seems so obscure!"

Ignorant, I know, but juries do what they do.

So all those points I laid out are to make the IETF publications
challenge-proof.

On Mon, Feb 5, 2024 at 7:35 PM John Levine <johnl at iecc.com> wrote:

> It appears that Bob Purvy via Internet-history <bpurvy at gmail.com> said:
> >They *should* be freely available, but we'd also like them to be Prior Art
>
> Internet Drafts *are* prior art.  Didn't you see Scott's note where he
> said they've been used in patent cases?
>
> R's,
> John
>
> PS:
>
> > 4. A searchable directory should be maintained. Being searchable by
> Google
> > and other search engines might be sufficient as a minimum.
>
> Of course they're all in search engines.
>