I'm sorry if I was a little mysterious about my reference to another use or mode of a DC-net; I'd _love_ to tell the rest of you flat-out, and put the idea in the public domain, but I'm not sure I _CAN_.

You should investigate an idea known as the provisional patent that is relatively new to the United States. They're supposedly shorter and designed to give you some claim to the ideas as well as some time to develop them enough to file a real patent. I can't give you any other advice except to tell you that my patent agent is also curious about them because they're new. -Peter