Don't Rely On Metadata For Dates
A lot of companies rely on stored metadata to establish the dates of prior art. That is a potentially dangerous strategy. Since metadata is easily manipulated by a person of moderate technical ability, it is unreliable for proving dates.
Metadata is the special information stored within files, such as word processor documents, that describe the data in the file. For example, a word processor file may include an embedded creation date, keywords, and authors' names. All files in Windows and Linux (as well as most other operating systems) also contain metadata maintained by the operating system. When someone looks at files in a folder in Windows, they can get a view that shows much of this information including the last date the file was modified. This would seem, on the surface, to be a good way to show that a file was created at a certain time and data, as well as when it was last changed.
However, all of this information is readily accessible from most various programs and within applications. In Microsoft Word the Author of a document can be changed from the File | Properties menu. There are many simple applications that can change a date stamp, not to mention some simple tricks. For example, change the date on a computer to sometime in the past, create a new document, cut and paste the contents of a recent document into it, and save the new document. When the computer's date is changed back to the current date and time, the document will have a date in the past as its date of creation and last modification.
A lot of faith has been placed in the immutability of EXIF information in graphics files. This is the metadata that digital cameras place in the files they create including a date stamp. Lots of other graphics applications store data like this as well. Many feel this is secure metadata because major applications such as Photoshop refuse to change it directly. Not all applications are so well behaved and there exists techniques one can use within Photoshop to fake a date. Deke McClelland in his (sometimes profane, so be warned) video blog shows just how to do that.
All of this points to the main reason that IP.com offers its Legal Safeguarding Service as part of InnovationQ. Computers cannot always be trusted to maintain dates. This can call into question when prior art was created. With the Legal Safeguarding Service and InnovationQ, documents and dates are verified by a third party and published on paper without revealing the contents of the documents. To change this requires changing not only information stored on a computer, but information stored with IP.com and printed in booklets that are sent to patent offices throughout the world. That is much harder to fake and hence easier to trust. Trust LSA, not your own computer files to establish data as prior art.
