Re: Patents to be Auctioned

Thanks God that TBL did not try to patent the idea of combining 
hypertext and networks.

Anybody too proud of his or her creative works should keep in mind that 
almost everything that a single individual invents is based on reusing, 
for free, the thoughts of millions of others, contemporary and previous; 
as a stimulus or as previous knowledge, or both.

What is creativity but a few thousand neurons firing and establishing a 
new link? And you want to charge mankind for this tiny, one-time 
bio-chemical firework, which was running on a neural network (your 
brain) that would not exist without the 30+ years of input provided from 
the world that has been surrounding you, for free?

Maybe the W3C should implement a rule that anybody using W3C-based 
technology (including the WWW as a whole), protocols, or mailing lists 
must not patent any invention facilitated by that. So individuals and 
enterprises can chose whether (1) they work and invent off-line, in the 
dark, and charge others for their creative output, or (2) use the power 
of the Web but share their fruits in turn with all fellow humans.

Martin
PS: I haven't read the patent, but to me it looks as if a lot of that 
approach has been described already in TBL's early works. So the claim 
of priority could be weaker than expected.

------------------------------------
martin hepp, http://www.heppnetz.de


Dudley Mills wrote:
> 
> 
> US Patents 6,397,219 and 6,466,940 which relate to the insertion and 
> extraction of contact, classification and geographic data into and from 
> web pages are to be sold at auction 2008 April 1-2. With a priority date 
> of 1997 February 21, the patents anticipated key aspects of the Semantic 
> Web.
> 
>  
> 
> I wrote and filed those patents because I wanted something like the 
> Sematic Web to evolve sooner rather than later. The patents mouldered 
> for 10 years until I was approached recently by Ocean Tomo 
> (http://www.oceantomo.com/index.html) who offered to auction them 
> (http://www.oceantomoauctions.com/OTA_Catalogue_Lot.asp?eventid=42008&Lot=16 
> <http://www.oceantomoauctions.com/OTA_Catalogue_Lot.asp?eventid=42008&Lot=16>). 
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Who gets to own the patents is now out of my hands. However, I’d like 
> them to go to a good home if I can find one.
> 
>  
> 
> If you know of anyone likely to be interested in these patents, would 
> you be so kind as to let them know?
> 
>  
> 
> I’ve set up a web site for the patent auction lot here: 
> http://www.freewebs.com/dudley-mills/index.htm
> 
>  
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Dudley Mills,
> 
> 30 Hutchison Crescent ,
> 
> Kambah, ACT 2902,
> 
> Australia .
> 
> Phone: +61-2-6296-2639
> 
>  
>

Received on Saturday, 19 January 2008 10:10:10 UTC