Tapolyai - 4:01 am on Jan 4, 2002 (gmt 0)

And if it is enforcable it will have the same faith as GIF did. Gone. Software is super easy to circumvent. We have TIFF, JPEG, etc. And they are better.

Patents supposed to protect the income of the developer not halt development. Vendors developing pattents to simply block further development is indeed should be an punishable offense.

I am also ticked about the stuff pattent office approves. It used to be that you had to have a high level of engineering degree and indeed you had to prove your device or method was unique.

Now the burden is shifted to the future user. First patent it - no questions asked - then let the sucker who falls on it and use it prove prior use to the patent in court. This method relieves the pattent office from doing ANY research. It falls on the poor sap who tries to use it first.

This is great to save money on the pattent office budget, but extreemely damaging to small inventors. How can I fight P&G on a chemical patent? They are multibillion dollars corporation with a whole division of lawyers. I can't efford to upgrade from DOS 2.11! So I abandon to secure my tested and proven teleportation device that would save the world, because I could not efford the legal fees... (Ok, maybe I do not have a teleportation device, but you get my point.)

I was thinking of pattenting a circular device that facilitiates locomotion.