Re: Patent fun

[Mordy Ovits <movits () bloomberg com>]

On Friday 02 July 2004 07:45 am, dave wrote:
>  A database app anyone could submit to, which would store and
> timestamp any idea you wanted to send it, occasionally submitting hashes
> to the NY Times or at the bottom of mailing list emails (to verify
> timestamps). However, this database would not be searchable by the
> public.

Before scientific discovery became public, it was jealously hoarded.  One 
problem the hoarders ran into was that someone else might independently make 
the same discovery.  While they may not have wanted to give away the 
knowledge, they *certainly* didn't want to give a way the fame.  The solution 
they arrived at is similar to your idea.

The author wrote up his discovery in full detail.  Then he "one-way hashed" it 
by taking the first letter of each word and writing them in sequence.  This 
created a document significantly smaller, consisting of a nonsensical bunch 
of letters.  He mailed this "proof" far and wide, so as to "timestamp" it and 
put the prior in prior art.  Now if anyone were to lay claim to the idea, 
letting the cat out of the bag, the former person would publish the original 
paper.  The timestamped hash served as proof that the newly published 
document was not newly written.

Mordy
-- 
Mordy Ovits
Network Security
Bloomberg L.P.

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