Patent Madness - (was: Re: [IP] Patent issued for Web caching)

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: October 20, 2006 3:23:37 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: lauren@vortex.com
Subject: Patent Madness - (was: Re: [IP] Patent issued for Web caching)


Dave,

It's quite clear how so many wacko patents are issued.
The USPTO is understaffed, out of its depth in technical
and business matters, and has gotten little useful guidance
from the courts or (insert guffaws here) Congress.

The whole area of business method and software patents is utterly
insane.  And it has *been* this way for a long time.
I wrote about this in "Wired News" four years ago tomorrow
( "Stop the Patent Process Madness":
 http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,55831,00.html ).

Matters have only really gotten worse since then.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
   - International Open Internet Coalition - http://www.ioic.net
Co-Founder, CIFIP
   - California Initiative For Internet Privacy - http://www.cifip.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com

  - - -

> From: Brett Glass <brett@lariat.net>
> Date: October 20, 2006 2:55:14 PM EDT
> To: dave@farber.net, ip@v2.listbox.com
> Subject: Patent issued for Web caching

> One can only wonder how this patent possibly could
> have issued.
> --Brett Glass, LARIAT.NET




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