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>