The Wall Street Journal is reporting here that the Open Invention Network, a group whose backers include IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony, plans to encourage programmers to publish inventions that could prevent patents from being issued, or get existing patents thrown out.

Open Invention Network (OIN), a collaborative enterprise that enables open source innovation and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux, today unveiled the Linux Defenders program, which is designed to make prior art more readily accessible to patent and trademark office examiners, and increase the quality of granted patents and reduce the number of poor quality patents.

"Linux Defenders offers the Linux and broader open source community a unique opportunity to harness its collaborative passion, intelligence, and ingenuity to ensure Linux's natural migration to mobile devices and computing," said Keith Bergelt, chief executive officer of Open Invention Network. "This landmark program will benefit open source innovation by significantly reducing the number of poor quality patents that might otherwise be used by patent trolls or strategics whose behaviors and business models are antithetical to true innovation and are thus threatened by Linux."

Co-sponsored by the Software Freedom Law Center and the Linux Foundation, Linux Defenders is a first-of-its-kind program which aims to reduce future intellectual property concerns about meritless patents for the Linux and open source community. The program is designed to accomplish this by soliciting prior art to enable the rejection of poor quality patent applications; soliciting prior art to enable the invalidation of poor quality issued patents; and soliciting high quality inventions that can be prepared as patent applications or defensive publications.

The Linux Defenders program is expected to enable individuals and organizations to efficiently impact the patenting process by enabling the contribution of relevant prior art, and by creating defensive publications which will establish a body of new prior art. The prior art can be used by examiners to screen patent applications more effectively and ensure only truly novel ideas are patented. The net effect of higher patent quality will be to provide greater freedom for the open source community to build on the Linux platform. Linux has enjoyed adoption in many industries and market segments around the world, and this program will help facilitate future progress in the expansion of the Linux footprint. Use of Linux Defenders is free of charge to contributors of prior art or inventions, and the hosting of defensive publications on databases accessible by patent and trademark office examiners around the world is borne by the program's sponsors.

"A large number of poor quality patents have the potential to stifle innovation," said Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom Law Center. "The Software Freedom Law Center is pleased to co-sponsor Linux Defenders with the goal of ridding the world of patents that unscrupulous organizations use to cripple the innovation inherent in freely redistributable, open source software."

"This is an important program that will give the community additional confidence in the code they develop," said Jim Zemlin, executive director of The Linux Foundation. "The open source community is getting an IP rights tool that will limit distractions created from organizations that like to play the FUD game. We enthusiastically encourage the Linux and open source communities to contribute to Linux Defenders."

"We are pleased to be hosting Linux Defenders on behalf of Open Invention Network, Software Freedom Law Center and the Linux Foundation, as it is a natural extension of our "Peer to Patent" platform and our explicit goal of working with industry to address core issues effecting the integrity of the patent system," said Mark Webbink, executive director of the Center for Patent Innovations at the New York Law School.

A Note on Defensive Publications

Defensive publications, which are endorsed by the United States Patent & Trademark Office as an IP rights management tool, are documents that provide descriptions and artwork of a product, device or method so that it enters the public domain and becomes prior art. This powerful preemptive disclosure prevents other parties from obtaining a patent on the product, device or method. It enables original inventors to ensure that they have access to their inventions by preventing others from later making patent claims against them. It also means that they do not have to shoulder the cost of patent applications.

The Defensive Publications program, a component of Linux Defenders, enables non-attorneys to use a set of Web-based forms to generate defensive publications. It relies on substantial participation from the open source community using a "Wiki"-like contribution model. OIN plans to work with participants to ensure that each defensive publication is an effective disclosure. The completed defensive publication will be added by OIN to the IP.com prior art database, which is, in turn, used by IP attorneys and the patent and trademark office to search for prior art when examining patent applications.

About Open Invention Network

Open Invention Network is a collaborative enterprise that enables innovation in open source and an increasingly vibrant ecosystem around Linux by acquiring and licensing patents, influencing behaviors and policy, and defending the integrity of the ecosystem through strategic programs such as Linux Defenders. It enables the growth and continuation of open source software by fostering a healthy Linux ecosystem of investors, vendors, developers and users.

Open Invention Network has considerable industry backing. It was launched in 2005, and has received investments from IBM, NEC, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony.

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We've been following, with great interest, a series of book reviews by patent attorney Stephen Albainy-Jenei at the Patent Baristas blog. His recent review of iProperty by William Barrett, Christopher Price, and Thomas Hunt, piqued our interest with this quote:

Self-described as answering the question, “If I’m serious about strategically deploying intellectual property in a way that benefits my bottom line, what should I do on Monday morning to make that happen?” iProperty tries to set out the concrete details involved in actual implementation and provides executives, managers and attorneys with practical advice for developing and executing a strategic intellectual property plan that will yield a measurable return on investment.

While ordering a copy of iProperty for the company library, we came across a preview of the book on Google Book Search that, beginning on page. 224, contains a chapter on a subject that is key to the business of IP.com Inc. and mentions our company and its prior art database.

Protecting Ideas By Giving Them Away

In this chapter, the authors of iProperty provide a good overview of the strategies of defensive publishing, concluding with a detailed consideration of the critical question, "Where to publish?"

Options for defensive publications range from traditional peer-reviewed journals to dot-com sites dedicated to online publishing. Publication in peer-reviewed journals is desirable, because such publications are important to the advancement of a scientific career, and the critical review such publications afford is important for the advancement of science. Moreover, the traditional requirement of repeatablility in peer-reviewed publications parallels the enablement requirement, helping to ensure that the latter is satisfied. The difficulty with traditional journal publications is that, assuming that they actually agree to publish your submitted article, they can take months to publish, and speed is critical to a defensive publication strategy. If another company files a patent application before the defensive publication becomes public, then the strategy is defeated.

A tempting forum for defensive publishing is the company Web site. However, most standard Web site publishing does not include a method for verifying the date of publication or the authenticity of the publication. Additionally, the content of Web sites is constantly changing, and Web-based searching is still not as accurate as traditional information databases. The world's patent examiners may not identify the publication. If this happens, the competitor's patent application could be examined and granted without knowledge of the defensive publication, and the publication would therefore not have its indended effect (i.e., use by a patent examiner as the basis for rejecting a competitor's patent application).

It should be noted that ideas described in patents but not claimed are also considered published subject matter and are dedicated to the public. One publication option is to describe the ideas to be published in a patent application without submitting claimes that protect the ideas. This option has the advantage that if, during the pendency of the application, the applicant decides to elect to patent the ideas rather than publish them, the applicant may have the option to submit claims covering the ideas. In other words, publishing ideas in a patent application can be a way to defer the finality of a decision between patenting and publishing.

Another option for defensive publishing is IP.com. This savvy Internet-based company, founded in 2000, has created a prior art database that provides a quick and effective way to put defensive publications in the hands of the public. The company has a wide variety of clients, including IBM, Genereal Electric, Motorola, Abbott Laboratories, and Eastman Koday. IP.com electronically date stamps and protects the integrity of each defensive publication to ensure that its publications have legal significance for the world's patent systems. Documents published by IP.com become part of a text-searchable database, accessible to patent examiners in the world's patent ofices. The disclosures also are published monthly in the IP.com Journal to ensure compliance with accepted legal standards. The journal is housed in 35 libraries and patent offices around the world.

Tom Colson, chief executive officer of IP.com, observes that a recent Subpreme Court case, KSR v. Teleflex, heightened the nonobviousness requirement for U.S. patents and, in so doing, made patents and patent applications more vulnerable to defensive publications. In that case, Justice Kennedy, writing for a unanimous court, emphasized that "the results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights under patent laws. Were it otherwise patents might stifle, rather than promote, the progress of useful arts." In taking this position, the Court pushed back on the U.S. Patent Office's recent tendency to grant easy patents, holding that the patent at issue was invalid due to the existence of published patents describing similar devices. Colson points out that, as a result of this ruling, "patents will be harder to get and easier to invalidate." This change suggests that in many cases, defensive publications will be an even more desirable strategy than has been the case in the past. "Simply put," Colson says, "competive patents are more dangerous than your own patents are valuable."

Is your company taking advantage of the defensive publication strategy where appropriate?

Continue Reading...

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Article One Partners, LLC launched as a new global community to legitimize the validity of patents. Community members, who Article One calls Advisors, have an opportunity to send in previously hard to find evidence of validity for high profile patents. By tapping the unique knowledge and referral networks of our Advisors, this publicly available evidence known as prior art can be discovered. Article One analyzes the prior art to determine whether it can show patents to be legitimized or invalid. If Article One forms an opinion that patents are invalid, Advisors earn up to U.S. $50,000, with $1,000,000 total being offered for launch. Advisors who actively build the community also earn premium compensation in Article One's Profit Sharing Plan of about five percent (5%) of the company's net annual profit.

The press release issued by Article One Partners generated a lot of press and buzz in the blogosphere last week, much of it restating the company's PR, but not all of it was uncritical.

Mike Masnick at Techdirt says the new company's business plan "sounds like a photocopy of BountyQuest's original plan."

Julian Sanchez at ars technica thinks this "crowdsourcing patent startup could use dose of own medicine."

What do you think? Will the business methods patent application of Article One Partners get past the prior art of BountyQuest? And what about Bilski?

UPDATE: Cheryl Milone, President, articleonepartners.com comments below.

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Click here for details, posted on IP.com while this job search is open. Patent Search Professionals conduct patentability, infringement, freedom to operate and validity searches of patents and other prior art on behalf of innovative companies. Searchers compare inventor technical disclosures with known prior art in order to make determinations regarding the existence of patents or literature which include the novel aspects of the disclosure. Documented results are prepared in a professional report delivered to the client.

IP.com provides companies with the tools and solutions to better manage their intellectual property (IP) and innovation records. Our initial product, the IP.com Prior Art Database, was created to provide companies with a fast and effective, centralized outlet for publishing and searching technical disclosures. Since its inception, the IP.com Prior Art Database has continued to grow, attracting high profile clients such as IBM, General Electric, Motorola, Abbott Laboratories, and Eastman Kodak (to name a few). More importantly, it is searched and cited daily by patent examiners worldwide.

IP.com’s InnovationQ platform provides solutions for managing the information, records, and processes associated with innovation and IP. InnovationQ is a robust software framework which delivers functions including sophisticated workflows, collaborative environments, and legally safeguarded document management. Utilizing this framework, IP.com creates configurable modules that provide integrated company-specific solutions. InnovationQ allows companies to improve their processes and derive new and additional value from their innovation and IP assets.

IP.com also excels at delivering the highest quality patent searches. Our multilingual and multidisciplinary search team ensures that we have specialized agents covering all technical domains. IP.com employs a proven process for managing each search project which delivers timely, accurate, and concise results.

The IP.com Creative Registry is a web-based registry that allows you to upload your documents and creative work for legal safeguarding. IP.com digitally fingerprints and date-stamps your work while placing it into a private archive for your personal access. IP.com then publishes the fingerprint and date into the public domain as a testament to the existence of your work. Your actual document is NEVER exposed to anyone else, yet you have irrefutable proof of it's content at the precise time it was safeguarded!

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Johnson Kong, Executive Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific for IP.com Inc., is in Korea with Tom Colson, our CEO, who addressed an international group of thought leaders gathering at PATINEX 2008.

IP.com Inc. CEO Tom Colson's presentation was on Advanced Enterprise Management and IP Strategies.

The keynote address for PATINEX 2008 was by KAIST President Nam-Pyo Suh, who spoke on the Strategy of Patent Information Usage for Finding a New Market.

After this conference, Johnson Kong and Tom Colson are continuing on to Beijing and other centers in Asia that are regular stops for executives from IP.com Inc.

Readers can follow at @ipdotcom on Twitter, where we're following other leaders in the technology space, like Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz. Here's how Jonathan Schwartz explains how Twitter helps him run Sun:

"Communication is a key part of leadership—as CEO, I need to engage the market, inside and outside Sun, with whatever technology affords me the greatest possible reach. Through blogs, online news, social networking sites, or Twitter, the Internet has fundamentally changed how we communicate with one another. Today, we have thousands of employees participating, engaging customers and developers across the world, 24 hours a day. And whether it's via a half-hour streaming video or a 140-character Tweet, we need to reach everyone in the forum and format they choose—not what we choose."

We're working on it, but it's still early days in the integration of Twitter feeds into this blog. However, if you add @ipdotcom to those you're following on Twitter now, you'll be sure to hear more about the latest innovations in intellectual property management and IP strategies. We look forward to reading your "tweets" and following you, too, just like we're following Jonathan Schwartz and Guy Kawasaki on Twitter.

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As we head off to Asia next week, commencing our trip in Korea for PATINEX 2008, we're mindful of the recent meeting of the IP5.

The heads of five intellectual property offices (IP5) met to address the common challenges they are currently facing. The meeting was held at Jeju, Korea, on October 27 and 28, 2008, and chaired by Dr. Jung-Sik Koh, Commissioner of the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO).

The other heads of the IP5 offices were Ms Alison Brimelow, President of the European Patent Office (EPO); Mr Takashi Suzuki, Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office (JPO); Mr Tian Lipu, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office of the People's Republic of China (SIPO), and Mr Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

They announced the adoption of the vision statement of work-sharing initiative among the five offices: "The elimination of unnecessary duplication of work among the offices, enhancement of patent examination efficiency and quality, and guarantee of the stability of patent right ". The offices also elaborated a cooperative framework in the form of ten Foundation Projects. These projects were devised to harmonize the search and examination environment of each office and to standardize the information-sharing process. The projects are expected to facilitate the work-sharing initiative by enhancing the quality of patent searches and examinations and building mutual trust in each other's work.

As the world sees economic barriers between nations fade away, innovators want their intellectual creations protected concurrently in major markets. Hence, applications for the same technology are filed at more than one patent office.

The heads of the five offices recognize the trend toward greater globalization and seek to minimize the resultant redundancy of patent searches and examinations. They also share a concern for the growing number of pending patent applications and the prolonged pendency period; and they acknowledge that delays in granting patents hinder the promotion of innovation, which is an intrinsic function of the patent system. To tackle this global phenomenon in an efficient manner, the IP5 offices have agreed to collaborate in moving forward with a work-sharing initiative.

Each office will oversee the implementation of two Foundation Projects. For the first step, the offices agreed that by, at the latest, the end of April 2009 they would exchange detailed proposals on each Foundation Project and strive to identify the areas of agreement as well as specific details of implementation.

The benefits of work-sharing are expected to be tangible and substantial. The number of applications filed at two or more of the IP5 offices currently stands at up to 250,000 per year. Reutilisation of the work of another office for these duplicate applications can lead to significant improvements in patent examination efficiency for all the IP5 offices.

The work-sharing among the five offices will increase the efficiency of the patent system and minimize the cost and effort of patent applicants with regard to the acquisition and management of patent rights. Consistency in the patent process will ensure the predictability of patent results when applicants lodge applications at multiple offices. Greater simplicity will increase the convenience and savings of applicants.

At the close of the meeting, the offices pledged to continue working together toward the realization of the shared vision and agreed to convene the next Heads of the five offices meeting at a time convenient to each office in 2009.

The lead offices and their assigned Foundation Projects are as follows:

1. Common Documentation Database (lead: EPO) - Aim: To bring together a common set of relevant patent and nonpatent literature from around the world to assist patent examiners in their prior art searches
2. Common Approach for a Hybrid Classification (lead: EPO) - Aim: To enable joint and efficient updating of patent classification and facilitate the reuse of work among the patent offices
3. Common Application Format (lead: JPO) - Aim: To facilitate the filing procedure of each office by using a Common Application Format; and by using electronic or digitized patent application filing (in XML format) and subsequent processing and publication in XML format
4. Common Access to Search and Examination Results (lead: JPO) - Aim: To enable examiners to find one-stop references in the dossier information of other offices, such as search and examination results and to conduct the priority document exchange (PDX) to reduce the cost of ordering copies of priority documents for applicants and the administrative costs of electronic processing for offices
5. Common Training Policy (lead: KIPO) - Aim: To standardize the training of patent examiners at each office, helping examiners to produce equivalent results of search and examination at the five offices
6. Mutual Machine Translation (lead: KIPO) - Aim: To help the offices overcome the language barrier of patent information and allow greater access to each other’s patent information
7. Common Rules for Examination Practice and Quality Control (lead: SIPO) - Aim: To execute patent examinations at a similar standard and quality through common rules of examination practice and quality control
8. Common Statistical Parameter System for Examination (lead: SIPO) - Aim: To establish a system of common statistical parameters for all examinations at the five offices; and to conduct statistical tasks and exchange information on examination practices under common rules and parameters, building on the work of the Trilateral statistical working group
9. Common Approach to Sharing and Documenting Search Strategies (lead: USPTO) - Aim: To promote reutilization by enabling the patent examiners of each office to understand each other’s search strategy
10. Common Search and Examination Support Tools (lead: USPTO) - Aim: To establish a system of common search and examination tools to facilitate work-sharing

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Defensive publishing, patents, and technology transfers are regular topics of discussion here on Securing Innovation, the corporate weblog of IP.com Inc., so we thought our readers in academia would be interested in the following press release, issued today.

(Media-Newswire.com) - Publishing academic papers is a top priority for MIT researchers, but they should also be aware of the need to protect their inventions with patents. That's where MIT's Technology Licensing Office can help.

The movement of knowledge and discoveries from MIT to the general public has had a major impact on economic development and job creation, both nationally and locally. Patent protection is critical to these activities.

At any given time, more than 1,000 MIT researchers -- faculty, postdocs, research staff and students -- are inventors on patents being filed or prosecuted through the TLO. More than half of these patents will eventually be licensed to companies for development and commercialization with the hope of impacting the "real world." The TLO grants more than 100 licenses a year, many involving a suite of patents; between 20 and 30 of these go to start-up companies.

Why patents matter

Companies' investments in "university stage" inventions are typically very risky, because neither the technical practicality nor the market potential of the technology is established. Often very substantial financial investment is needed to bring them to market -- with substantial risk that the investment will not pay off. Strong patent protection is a company's best protection from later competitors if the product is successfully brought to market.

In a global economy, worldwide patent protection is most valuable. But, except in the United States ( and a few much smaller countries ), any public disclosure before a priority patent is filed will bar filing for patent protection. Public disclosure can include written publications, Internet descriptions, poster sessions and even public talks.

Fortunately, only one priority patent need be filed in the United States before the public disclosure. This then preserves the possibility of later filing for international patents.

How to protect your invention

The TLO encourages researchers with a potential invention to submit a Technology Disclosure form -- available for download -- at the time a first rough draft is made of a potential publication, poster session, or planned talk to anything other than an all-MIT audience. The form will ask for the anticipated date of first public disclosure.

Upon receipt of the Technology Disclosure, the TLO will evaluate whether the invention appears to have commercial potential. If time allows prior to public disclosure, the TLO will also ask a member of the inventing team -- usually a postdoc or graduate student -- to meet with the TLO's search librarian to search for "prior art" ( references, including patents, that may show prior invention by others ). A patent application will be filed if no damning prior art is found and if the invention is assessed as having potential commercial applicability.

"We hope to get Technology Disclosures at least a couple of months prior to the publication, but we will never ask the researchers to delay their publication; we understand the academic priorities," said TLO Director Lita Nelsen. "If necessary, we can file a 'rush' patent application -- but more time allows better quality."

What to do if you have already published

All is not lost if you have published before filing a patent application. Unlike in most foreign countries, U.S. patent law allows filing within one year after publication. Clearly, it's better to have worldwide patent protection, but a U.S. patent will cover any products made in the United States, wherever sold; or imported to the United States, wherever made.

It is also possible that your publication was not "enabling" -- that is, did not provide sufficient detail to enable others to replicate your invention. In this circumstance, worldwide patent protection may still be available.

Readers who have experience with the technology licensing office of any academic institution are welcome to contribute to a discussion of this topic in the comments below.

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As the team here at IP.com gets ready for upcoming conferences that will be attended by hundreds of intellectual property attorneys, we thought it might be helpful to review The Conferencing Manifesto that Matthew Homann has republished on his insightful law blog.

Know Your Questions. Seek Your Answers. Never attend a conference without at least three questions you want answered. Never leave until they have been.

Their Conference is Your Focus Group. Want to measure the pulse of the marketplace? Want feedback on your idea, product, or business model? Go to a conference populated by your ideal customer. Forget the sessions. Hang out in the hallway. And listen. A lot.

Be Smart. Be Helpful. Then Be Quiet. Other attendees may have come to the conference to meet people like you. They may want and deserve your help (and you, theirs). They didn’t come to hear your hour-long presentation. Please understand the difference.

Paper Works Best. Your ability to pay attention to conference speakers and attendees is inversely proportional to your ability to pay attention to the outside world. Stow the laptop, turn off the BlackBerry, pull out the Moleskine, and start writing. Oh, and if you can’t leave the real world behind for an hour or two, please don’t leave it at all.

Blogging is not Participation. We get it. Your blog has tens/hundreds/thousands of readers who can’t wait to hear your take on the last speaker’s presentation and about how crappy the WiFi is. Your “audience” will be there tomorrow. Your fellow attendees will not.

The most important people at the conference are sitting next to you. Think Tom Peters gives a rat’s ass about your new business strategy? Is Seth Godin going to give you personalized marketing advice? Of course not. The people at any event who are most likely to have already faced your challenges (and maybe even solved them) aren’t the highly-paid keynoters, but rather your fellow attendees. They are like you. They can help you. Ignore them at your peril.

Vendors Matter. Vendors are like puppies. They crave your attention. Give it. They know your industry and the other attendees better than you do. Talk with them. Learn from them. Then take a few pens.

If, by chance, you're going to be at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Intellectual Property Owners Association on September 21-23 in San Diego, please stop by and visit IP.com and the other exhbitors in the Exhibitor Hall.

If you miss us there, you can catch up with IP.com's Michael Inglisa next month in Washington, DC at the Annual Meeting of the Intellectual Property Law Association between October 23-25.

Hopefully, you'll find some effective tools for management of intellectual property assets that your law firm's clients might thank you for discovering.

IP.com, Inc. is the global leader in providing strategic and reliable intellectual property solutions. The world's largest and most innovative companies trust IP.com for their enterprise-wide intellectual property asset management, defensive publishing, and patent search services. With IP.com’s comprehensive suite of products, companies can effectively maximize the value of their Intellectual Property. Utilizing workflows and roles-based access, IP.com can help you to capture and safeguard your innovation from its earliest stages, streamline your IP decision-making processes, reduce your R&D costs, and accelerate your time to market - all within a secure collaborative environment. Ultimately, IP.com will help you to protect and maximize your company’s most critical asset, your intellectual property.

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The word "publish" often brings fear into the hearts of patent attorneys, and rightly so. In sectors such as the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, intellectual capital is king. Patents are a prerequisite to protecting some of the most valuable aspects of that intellectual capital and are thus a key to competitive survival. Ill-considered and untimely publications can be patent poison. Yet, like any poison, publication can also be used as a weapon. In attempting to avoid damaging their own patent potential through poorly timed publication, companies and academic institutions should take care not to overlook the defensive use of publications. A successfully executed defensive publication strategy can, without the need for expensive patent prosecution, help secure freedom to operate by preventing others from patenting in the technology space described in the publication.

That's the conclusion of a lengthy article published in "bioentrepreneur" on nature.com back in 2003, and it's as true today as it was then. But there's one significant little error in that article and, since it's still accessible on the Internet, we'd like to make sure there's no misunderstanding.

The article begins with the example of IBM's technical disclosures for patents but gets one point wrong and we think it might be helpful if we set the record straight.

A search of the US Patent database from 1996 to 2001 reveals almost 10,000 patents that cite the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin as prior art. The Bulletin, which is published as a component of Research Disclosure, is a mechanism for defensive publishing. Citation of a publication, such as the Bulletin, in a patent application indicates that the publication contributes to the state of the art against which the application is judged. IBM uses the Bulletin to advance the state of the art, thereby raising the bar for its competitors' patent applications. In other words, Bulletin publications force IBM's competitors to narrow their patent claims, helping IBM to reduce the possibility that its competitors' patent claims will encompass IBM inventions.

Citation of such a large number of Bulletin articles strongly suggests that IBM's defensive publication strategy is paying off. Despite its successful use by IBM and a handful of other companies, defensive publication has been slow to catch on as an intellectual property (IP) strategy in biotechnology. This article discusses the legal implications of defensive publications, analyzes strategic considerations for determining whether to publish, patent, or maintain an invention as a trade secret, discusses legal considerations for the preparation of defensive publications, and discusses forums for defensive publication.

Since 2002, IBM's Technical Disclosure Bulletin and all its technical disclosures since 1958 have been published as part of IP.com's Prior Art Database. IBM technical disclosures (from 1958 through today) are available for a fee through IP.com. Documents can be purchased through the following: IP.com Prior Art Database. As indicated on the IBM website: "They are also kept on file with Patent & Trademark Offices and U.S. Government Depository Libraries. Searching/copying services are NOT provided by any PTO or Government office."

With that correction noted, the original article is still a valuable resource for anyone who wants to learn more about defensive publishing. So, just in case the editors of the nature.com website decide to correct the error by removing the article altogether, we thought it might be worthwhile to quote extensively from the original article on this blog, for the record. Continue Reading...

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Patrick Andrews, creator of the amazing Invention of the Day blog, says, "IOTD is a source of prior art, whatever you may think of its value. Amongst those of us who would rather compete in the spheres of ideation and product development than in the courts and who think that worthwhile research has to be publicly available, such defensive publishing is becoming more widely accepted."

Check out the full list of inventions on this very interesting website. Some of the so-called "feasible inventions" are worth adding to IP.com's Prior Art Database, don't you agree?

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