request for patent info

[jet@nas.nasa.gov (J. Eric Townsend)]

Eric Hughes writes:
 > As much as we need this, we also need the actual text of the patents.
 > What a patent actually covers is often much narrower than what is
 > claimed.

Anyone near a federal patent repository can easily get this
information.  Walk in, find the patent by number, have the nice
attendant print it out on a crappy photostat machine, pay in cash,
leave.  No written record!  Rice U. has a nice staff.  (I don't know
where the west coast ones are.)