Re: Patents and trade secrets was: Encryption algorithms used in PrivaSoft

["Pat Farrell" <pfarrell@netcom.com>]

  thad@hammerhead.com (Thaddeus J. Beier)  writes:

> At this point, in this country, a patent is secret until it is issued.

This will change in the US fairly soon. It is fallout of one of the
world-wide trade and tarriff treaties -- we have to make our
patent process be more in line with the rest of the world.

One of the big technical challenges that the PTO and PRC have is how
to release in-process patents securly. (PRC is the systems integrator
for the PTO's APS (advanced Patent System) that had all the text and images
of all patents since 1970 online.)

They have even talked about putting patents on the WWW, but actually doing
it is quite a way off in the future.

Pat

Pat Farrell    Grad Student      http://www.isse.gmu.edu/students/pfarrell
Info. Systems & Software Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
PGP key available on homepage               #include <standard.disclaimer>