Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Hi, To win a game (and be officially declared as winner), one must play it according to its rules. On Tuesday 23 November 2004 17:18, Tim Churches wrote: The cost of lodging opposition to a patent before it issues here in Asutralia is AUD$550. I am willing to reimburse you this amount. The main point here is to actually lodge the opposition. All the documents, information and discussions on this list are excellent but they will be useless if nothing is done to play the game by its rules. However, if the opposition is not upheld, then the opposer is liable to pay for the patent applicants' costs in responding to the opposition. The entire system is stacked in favour of the aptent applicant, which is wrong. Let me suggest this strategy: You create a foundation or a non-profit organization asap and have it legally registered. This organization (not an individual) must lodge the opposition. After lodging, send me copies of the documents, invoice and bank account info so I can reimburse you the above amount. Then you start campaigns to raise funds asap for information dissemination campaigns and in case you lose the case. You can ask for donations from individuals, groups, make a benefit gala, dinner, etc. Use proven marketing tactics to ignite interest in the case. Keep people talking, not just this list. Create publicity. Expose your opponents in the public. Tear down their facade. Sounds ugly? No. In the battleground there is no room for niceties. I mean it. Elpidio Latorilla
Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Elpidio Latorilla wrote: Hi, To win a game (and be officially declared as winner), one must play it according to its rules. On Tuesday 23 November 2004 17:18, Tim Churches wrote: The cost of lodging opposition to a patent before it issues here in Asutralia is AUD$550. I am willing to reimburse you this amount. Thanks, but I understand that other organisations will be opposing the patent application here in Australia. Also, AUD$550 is just the application fee. If the opposition tot he application is not upheld by the Patents Commissioner, then costs are awarded againstthe opponent - that's right - the person or organisation objecting tot he patent application has to pay the costs (eg patent attorney fees) of the aptent applicant. Totally absurd, and it shows how much teh system is stacked in favour of the patent applicant, who merely has to assert novelty, not prove it. The main point here is to actually lodge the opposition. All the documents, information and discussions on this list are excellent but they will be useless if nothing is done to play the game by its rules. I would suggest that others need to oppose the patent application in the US, UK and Canada. Separate patent applications have been lodged in those countries. Even is teh patent application is successfully opposed in Australia doesn't mean it won't be approved and issue in the other countries. However, if the opposition is not upheld, then the opposer is liable to pay for the patent applicants' costs in responding to the opposition. The entire system is stacked in favour of the aptent applicant, which is wrong. Hmm, I seem to be repeating myself. But I am flabberghasted just how unfair the patent system really is. Let me suggest this strategy: You create a foundation or a non-profit organization asap and have it legally registered. This organization (not an individual) must lodge the opposition. After lodging, send me copies of the documents, invoice and bank account info so I can reimburse you the above amount. Then you start campaigns to raise funds asap for information dissemination campaigns and in case you lose the case. You can ask for donations from individuals, groups, make a benefit gala, dinner, etc. Use proven marketing tactics to ignite interest in the case. Keep people talking, not just this list. Create publicity. Expose your opponents in the public. Tear down their facade. Yes, the idea is a good one. See http://www.pubpat.org for an organisation doing something like this in the US. Alas, I don't have the time or inclination to become a full-time patent buster - but I have been trying to interest others in such a role. And I am willing to help find prior art. Anyone wishing to oppose this patent in teh US, UK and Canada should contact me and I will provide details of candidate prior art assembled so far, and put you in touch with organisations which have indicated that they intend to oppose the application here in Asutralia. Of course, the application is still undergoing formal examination by the patent office - if it fails that, then we can relax. But that same patent office did approve an innovation patent (aka a petty patent) on the wheel a few years ago... Sounds ugly? No. In the battleground there is no room for niceties. I mean it. Unfair and inequitable intellectual property protection regimes are indeed the battleground of the 21st Century, just as concentrated ownership of factories and farms were in the 20th Century. Tim C smime.p7s Description: S/MIME Cryptographic Signature
Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
To All, I don't know if having someone here in DC to deliver documents would help. I am willing to however. Pat
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Tim Churches wrote: Gerard Freriks wrote: Hi, Lets be sensible. A template is nothing but a screen thta can be filled. As far as I know that has been described many times before 2001. Isn't it? Yes, but pointers to papers published prior to 2001 which specifically describe this would be appreciated. Formal and specific evidence of prior art is required to successfully oppose a patent application - in most countries, the whole legal process is weighted in favour of the patent applicant (which is the opposite of the way it ought to be, since the state is granting the applicant a monopoly on the idea). For instance, in Australia (and probably other countries), the burden of proof falls on the opponent to prove lack of novelty, not on the applicant to prove novelty. The applicant needs only to claim novelty and show evidence of a search for prior art. well, even my original archetypes paper was published on the web in 2000, based on a small epiphany reached with Sam Heard one day in 1997 I did various kinds of searches and never found anything like the same design, although of course I am aware that many people/organisations have considered the same requirements. The only published work that had some similarities (and from which I did get ideas) was Martin Fowler's Analysis Patterns, which does describe a kind of ad hoc two-level modelling (this was of course cited in my work). I am also certain that the problem has actually been solved before - just that such solutions are hidden in commercial software, not published in their own right. I have done my best to find some such solutions, and have indeed found a couple of notable ones (both less rigorous and extensive than what we have in openEHR, but nevertheless, based on exactly the same intuition, and very nicely engineered). I am sure that Andrew Ho published some earlier paper on templates, and probably so have others in this group. On the morality of patents, I agree with Dave and Tim - I am personally completely against the patent system for ideas or concepts. I don't think having a good idea is a basis for extracting money out of other people who might have had a similar, earlier or better idea, or no idea at all. Where patents can be relevant is for limited time protection of developed/engineered artifacts - where the costs of development are high and need to be recouped by the original developer - in other words things which are the results of ideas being engineered into something useful. This is where limited time patents on some kinds of drugs might be reasonable - the drug substance formula is not the 'idea' in this case, the original new understanding of the problem is the idea. - thomas beale
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
David Forslund wrote: What I have a problem is properly identifying prior art. The background papers clearly cover these issues long before these patents were submitted, but only in a general way by describing the general problem that the patent is dealing with in the specific. I would go so far as to say that many patents don't describe a solution at all, but describe the problem in terms of e.g. use cases or scenarios, which contain perhaps small design ideas here and there. But mostly I get the impression from patents I have read that the authors are not trying to protect an invention, but trying to protect the niche which they have realised exists, and in which they think (given some more time) they might be able to create an invention - they are trying to grab a piece of the problem space for themselves and charge anyone money for creating inventions that solve the problem they have described. - thomas
RE: A patent application covering EHRs
Will any part of the VA's My HealtheVet portal provide some prior art? It's an web based patient health record. http://www.health-evet.va.gov/ -Original Message- From: Thomas Beale [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 2:28 AM To: David Forslund Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs David Forslund wrote: What I have a problem is properly identifying prior art. The background papers clearly cover these issues long before these patents were submitted, but only in a general way by describing the general problem that the patent is dealing with in the specific. I would go so far as to say that many patents don't describe a solution at all, but describe the problem in terms of e.g. use cases or scenarios, which contain perhaps small design ideas here and there. But mostly I get the impression from patents I have read that the authors are not trying to protect an invention, but trying to protect the niche which they have realised exists, and in which they think (given some more time) they might be able to create an invention - they are trying to grab a piece of the problem space for themselves and charge anyone money for creating inventions that solve the problem they have described. - thomas
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 18:29, Tim Churches wrote: At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). Thanks for the heads up Tim. It likely will come down to who has the time/money to properly fight this. What is the name of the organization that caused the review for MS's patent application on the FAT filesystem? Anyway, anyone of the open source EMR's being discussed in the late 90's would meet all 50 claims in this patent application. Certainly FreePM met all of those and most if not all of the claims were discussed on the mailing lists. http://www.mail-archive.com/freepm_discuss%40listbot.com/maillist.html https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freepm-discuss Also Jeff Buckbinder at Freemed, Horst Herb at Gnumed and Alex Caldwell at TkFamilyPractice can lay claims to these same ideas of using distributed access to a central record for patients. HTH, TIm signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Certainly the work we have done with OpenEMed qualifies, too. The paper we wrote in 1997 on the Virtual Patient Record in the Communications of the ACM has these concepts, too. CACM, 1997, vol 40., No. 8 pp 110-117 Dave Original Message From: Tim Cook [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: OpenHealth List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: OpenEHR Technical [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 4:39 AM Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 18:29, Tim Churches wrote: At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). Thanks for the heads up Tim. It likely will come down to who has the time/money to properly fight this. What is the name of the organization that caused the review for MS's patent application on the FAT filesystem? Anyway, anyone of the open source EMR's being discussed in the late 90's would meet all 50 claims in this patent application. Certainly FreePM met all of those and most if not all of the claims were discussed on the mailing lists. http://www.mail-archive.com/freepm_discuss%40listbot.com/maillist.html https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freepm-discuss Also Jeff Buckbinder at Freemed, Horst Herb at Gnumed and Alex Caldwell at TkFamilyPractice can lay claims to these same ideas of using distributed access to a central record for patients. HTH, TIm
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Tim, I published this invention back in 1998 titled Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Records. Please see: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/patient-controlled and referenced here: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/oio This work has been online and retrievable via Google and other search engines for many years. Performing a Google search using patient-controlled electronic medical records as the search term retrieves this paper as the first hit. I wonder if the Australian pharmacists read my invention and is now trying to steal it? It would be amazing if they neglected to run a Google search on related prior art. :-) Best regards, Andrew -- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:29:24 +1100, Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. These concerns are reported here: http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,11467621%5E15319%5E%5Enb%20v%5E15306,00.html or here: http://snipurl.com/atst The application has been lodged under the international PCT (patent co-operation treaty), and it appears that country level applications have been lodged in at least the UK, Canada and the US, as well as Australia. At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). The details of the patent application, and a related one filed on the same date, are as follows: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SHARING PERSONAL HEALTH DATA can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 or here: http://snipurl.com/atol Click on the tabs at the top to see the details of the patent claims. The details of the CR Group application for METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SECURE INFORMATION can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOCIDX=WO02073455F=0 or here: http://snipurl.com/ator The filing dates for both are 14 march 2002, with earliest priority dates of 14 March 2001. Just to whet your appetite, here is Claim 1 of the Pharmacy Guild application: CLAIMS : 1. A method for a health care provider to obtain personal health data relating to a consumer, the method comprising the steps of : the consumer causing personal health data to be stored in a secure repository, said repository requiring authentication of the consumer's identity before the consumer is provided access to the repository; the consumer selecting items of personal health data to share and identifying a health care provider, or class of health care providers, to whom access will be provided for those items of personal health data; a health care provider providing authentication of their identity to the consumer's secure repository and being provided access to those items of personal health data of the consumer for which the health care provider has been identified for sharing; the health care provider using the personal health data of the consumer to determine health care advice or the provision of a health care service for the consumer; and the health care provider recording details of the consultation and the advice or service provided to the consumer in the secure repository of health data of the consumer. If this patent issues, we (or our govts) may find ourselves having to pay royalties to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to use any EHR applications which meet this description, or having to challenge the patent in court (expensive). Hence there is value in demolishing it with prior art in the application stage - assuming that it survives the examination phase (which it shouldn't, but as we know, the US patent office seems willing to approve a patent for just about anything, no matter how obvious or well-known the idea is, and the Australian patent office managed to issue an innovation patent for the wheel a few years ago...true!). Tim C
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Tue, 2004-11-23 at 07:49, David Forslund wrote: Certainly the work we have done with OpenEMed qualifies, too. The paper we wrote in 1997 on the Virtual Patient Record in the Communications of the ACM has these concepts, too. CACM, 1997, vol 40., No. 8 pp 110-117 Dave Sorry for leaving you out of the list David. I recall reading that paper but not the details of it. Having a publication like that is very valuable in this case. Tim signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
And if you do a google on Virtual Patient Record you will see as the first hit the pre-published version of our (Kilman and myself) CACM paper outlining how do do all of this, from February, 1996. This is prior to Andrew's patent, but describes the role of a patient in managing their own health record and how to implement it. The implementation of this now resides in the OpenEMed architecture and software and existed earlier in the 1994 version of TeleMed (see reference in the above paper). I don't consider any of this inventions, simply understanding how to build robust distributed healthcare systems that meet the needs of people. Dave Forslund Original Message From: Andrew Ho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Openehr-Technical [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 9:56 AM Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs Tim, I published this invention back in 1998 titled Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Records. Please see: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/patient-controlled and referenced here: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/oio This work has been online and retrievable via Google and other search engines for many years. Performing a Google search using patient-controlled electronic medical records as the search term retrieves this paper as the first hit. I wonder if the Australian pharmacists read my invention and is now trying to steal it? It would be amazing if they neglected to run a Google search on related prior art. :-) Best regards, Andrew -- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:29:24 +1100, Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. These concerns are reported here: http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,11467621%5E15319%5E%5Enb%20v%5E15306,00.html or here: http://snipurl.com/atst The application has been lodged under the international PCT (patent co-operation treaty), and it appears that country level applications have been lodged in at least the UK, Canada and the US, as well as Australia. At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). The details of the patent application, and a related one filed on the same date, are as follows: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SHARING PERSONAL HEALTH DATA can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 or here: http://snipurl.com/atol Click on the tabs at the top to see the details of the patent claims. The details of the CR Group application for METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SECURE INFORMATION can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOCIDX=WO02073455F=0 or here: http://snipurl.com/ator The filing dates for both are 14 march 2002, with earliest priority dates of 14 March 2001. Just to whet your appetite, here is Claim 1 of the Pharmacy Guild application: CLAIMS : 1. A method for a health care provider to obtain personal health data relating to a consumer, the method comprising the steps of : the consumer causing personal health data to be stored in a secure repository, said repository requiring authentication of the consumer's identity before the consumer is provided access to the repository; the consumer selecting items of personal health data to share and identifying a health care provider, or class of health care providers, to whom access will be provided for those items of personal health data; a health care provider providing authentication of their identity to the consumer's secure repository and being provided access to those items of personal health data of the consumer for which the health care provider has been identified for sharing; the health care provider using the personal health data of the consumer to determine health care advice or the provision of a health care service for the consumer; and the health care provider recording details of the consultation and the advice or service provided to the consumer in the secure repository of health data of the consumer. If this patent issues, we (or our govts) may find ourselves having to pay royalties to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to use any EHR applications which meet this description, or having to challenge the patent
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, David Forslund wrote: And if you do a google on Virtual Patient Record you will see as the first hit the pre-published version of our (Kilman and myself) CACM paper outlining how do do all of this, from February, 1996. Dave, I just read your virtual patient record paper at http://openemed.net/background/TeleMed/Papers/virtual.html and I could not find text in this paper that specifies the patient's role in controlling who should have access to the records. If I missed it, please point to the section of the paper that spells this out. This is prior to Andrew's patent, but describes the role of a patient in managing their own health record and how to implement it. I must have missed it. Did your NJC prototype (briefly mentioned in this paper) include patient-controlled records feature? The implementation of this now resides in the OpenEMed architecture and software and existed earlier in the 1994 version of TeleMed (see reference in the above paper). It is one thing to have a access control policy module but that is not the same as giving patients control over those policies. The same goes for trying to use FreeMed, FreePM, GnuMed, and TkFP as relevant prior art. As far as I know, they do not have the patient-controlled feature. If we want to use them as prior art, we need to point to specific designs or implementations that reads-on Philip, Vasken, and Trevor's patent (http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456). I don't consider any of this inventions, simply understanding how to build robust distributed healthcare systems that meet the needs of people. Where these simple understandings may be deemed non-obvious and signficant by patent reviewers, they are patentable. :-) This means writing documentation to fully disclose innovative system features and filing some patents from time to time may become increasingly important for free software projects. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org Dave Forslund Original Message From: Andrew Ho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Openehr-Technical [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 9:56 AM Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs Tim, I published this invention back in 1998 titled Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Records. Please see: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/patient-controlled and referenced here: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/oio This work has been online and retrievable via Google and other search engines for many years. Performing a Google search using patient-controlled electronic medical records as the search term retrieves this paper as the first hit. I wonder if the Australian pharmacists read my invention and is now trying to steal it? It would be amazing if they neglected to run a Google search on related prior art. :-) Best regards, Andrew -- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org On Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:29:24 +1100, Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. These concerns are reported here: http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,11467621%5E15319%5E%5Enb%20v%5E15306,00.html or here: http://snipurl.com/atst The application has been lodged under the international PCT (patent co-operation treaty), and it appears that country level applications have been lodged in at least the UK, Canada and the US, as well as Australia. At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). The details of the patent application, and a related one filed on the same date, are as follows: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SHARING PERSONAL HEALTH DATA can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 or here: http://snipurl.com/atol Click on the tabs at the top to see the details of the patent claims. The details of the CR Group application for METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SECURE INFORMATION can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOCIDX=WO02073455F=0 or here: http://snipurl.com/ator The filing dates for both are 14 march 2002, with earliest priority dates of 14 March 2001. Just to whet your
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 20:29, Tim Churches wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. More prior art... Dr. Thomas Payne used WAN technology to distribute his own EHR between his clinic, hospital, and local nursing home in 1990, using a DOS-based system. And, of course, there's the Logician Internet software that maintained a central data repository and served practices over the net, circa 1996-98. Dan Johnson
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Daniel L. Johnson wrote: On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 20:29, Tim Churches wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. More prior art... Dr. Thomas Payne used WAN technology to distribute his own EHR between his clinic, hospital, and local nursing home in 1990, using a DOS-based system. And, of course, there's the Logician Internet software that maintained a central data repository and served practices over the net, circa 1996-98. Dan, But do these prior systems provide the follwing set of functions? comprising the steps of : the consumer causing personal health data to be stored in a secure repository, said repository requiring authentication of the consumer's identity before the consumer is provided access to the repository; the consumer selecting items of personal health data to share and identifying a health care provider, or class of health care providers, to whom access will be provided for those items of personal health data; a health care provider providing authentication of their identity to the consumer's secure repository and being provided access to those items of personal health data of the consumer for which the health care provider has been identified for sharing; the health care provider using the personal health data of the consumer to determine health care advice or the provision of a health care service for the consumer; and the health care provider recording details of the consultation and the advice or service provided to the consumer in the secure repository of health data of the consumer. Quoted from Claim 1 of http://v3.espacenet.com/textclam?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 Prior art that do not read on the claims of the patent are not relevant to this discusssion. Specifically, subset implementation does not infringe a patent. This means if we build software that does not do all the steps spelled out above, it does not infringe. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On 22 Nov 2004, at 6:29 PM, Tim Churches wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. snip The details of the CR Group application for METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SECURE INFORMATION can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOCIDX=WO02073455F=0 or here: http://snipurl.com/ator The filing dates for both are 14 march 2002, with earliest priority dates of 14 March 2001. The following link may be a false lead, as it may not be a close enough match, or early enough. http://www.sonomavws.org/it082902200.html This is an August 2002 article on a migrant farmworker personal health record system, which it describes as developed and launched a year ago by a local non-profit health advocacy group. This may be of interest depending on how closely the Follow-Me health record matches the claims of the PGA, and depending on whether or not the Follow-Me system beats the 14-March-01 date. Further useful links. http://www.vwsvia.org/ http://www.mmrinfo.com/ [wr] - - - - - - - - will ross technology project manager suite 206 216 west perkins street ukiah, california 95482 [voice] 707.272.7255 [fax] 707.462.5015 http://www.phoenixpm.org - - - - - - - -
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Tim Cook wrote: On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 18:29, Tim Churches wrote: At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). Thanks for the heads up Tim. It likely will come down to who has the time/money to properly fight this. What is the name of the organization that caused the review for MS's patent application on the FAT filesystem? The Public Patent Foundation - see http://www.pubpat.org - they may be interested in taking it on, before the patent issues in the US. Thanks, Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
The sentence says the patient will take an active role in managing their own health by having access to the virtual patient record. We specifically didn't say they would necessarily have control, since that might be still managed by the physician providing the data. But the fact that they should have access to their medical record from multiple locations in a seamless manner was clear spelled out. Of course the RAD specification we worked on shortly after this time was designed to control distributed access to medical records, be they by a patient or by a healthcare provider. It isn't clear to me that it is always best for the patient to have full control of their medical record, at least as it is being generated. I don't think this is a patent issue but a public policy issue. So I don't think that one should have to pay someone royalties for a patent on a system configuration issue. I view a distributed control of a record is important to preserve the quality of the data, but annotations and possibly correction of errors should be done by the patient, although the patient is always the best person to judge the nature of an error. Distributed secure access with multiple user control is what we were talking about. Regarding the issue of patents, in general. I think too many things are approved by the US Patent Office without due diligence as to prior art. They rely on the courts to enforce the patents, so particularly for open source, this creates a problem as a patent may be only as good as the amount of money you have to fight it. There is a lot of what we did in 1993-1996 which clearly would have been patentable based on what I've seen in the patent office, but our folks at Los Alamos National Laboratory said it wasn't patentable. I think this is because they didn't want to get involved with having to defend a patent. The patent that has caused Microsoft a difficult time came out of the Univ. of San Francisco and I saw the prepatent application early on. I did not think it was patentable. But the idea was later sold to Eolas and they have fought the patent against Microsoft. The rest is history. http://www.ucop.edu/news/archives/2003/aug11art1qanda.htm I still think that idea has lots of prior art and isn't patentable. So I'm skeptical about a lot of this stuff. Dave Original Message From: Andrew Ho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: David Forslund [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Openehr-Technical [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 11:56 AM Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, David Forslund wrote: And if you do a google on Virtual Patient Record you will see as the first hit the pre-published version of our (Kilman and myself) CACM paper outlining how do do all of this, from February, 1996. Dave, I just read your virtual patient record paper at http://openemed.net/background/TeleMed/Papers/virtual.html and I could not find text in this paper that specifies the patient's role in controlling who should have access to the records. If I missed it, please point to the section of the paper that spells this out. This is prior to Andrew's patent, but describes the role of a patient in managing their own health record and how to implement it. I must have missed it. Did your NJC prototype (briefly mentioned in this paper) include patient-controlled records feature? The implementation of this now resides in the OpenEMed architecture and software and existed earlier in the 1994 version of TeleMed (see reference in the above paper). It is one thing to have a access control policy module but that is not the same as giving patients control over those policies. The same goes for trying to use FreeMed, FreePM, GnuMed, and TkFP as relevant prior art. As far as I know, they do not have the patient-controlled feature. If we want to use them as prior art, we need to point to specific designs or implementations that reads-on Philip, Vasken, and Trevor's patent (http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456). I don't consider any of this inventions, simply understanding how to build robust distributed healthcare systems that meet the needs of people. Where these simple understandings may be deemed non-obvious and signficant by patent reviewers, they are patentable. :-) This means writing documentation to fully disclose innovative system features and filing some patents from time to time may become increasingly important for free software projects. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org Dave Forslund Original Message From: Andrew Ho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: Openehr-Technical [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 9:56 AM Subject: Re: A patent
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Andrew Ho wrote: Tim, I published this invention back in 1998 titled Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Records. Please see: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/patient-controlled and referenced here: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/oio This work has been online and retrievable via Google and other search engines for many years. Performing a Google search using patient-controlled electronic medical records as the search term retrieves this paper as the first hit. OK, many thanks. Your paper covers many of their claims, although it does not mention controlling selective uploading and access to particular data items via a template, which is also part of their claims - but I have found another paper which desribes that. But your paper covers their other claims nicely - the more the merrier! I wonder if the Australian pharmacists read my invention and is now trying to steal it? It would be amazing if they neglected to run a Google search on related prior art. :-) Possible but I doubt it. I suspect it is more a case of a set of solutions which are fairly obvious to anyone who considers the problem in detail. The Pharmacy Guild was part of a multi-sectoral committee which considered design issues for a shared medication record for Australia (now called MediConnect). They just happened to file this patent application just after that design work was winding down - which allegedly came as a surprise to the other committee members. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Andrew Ho wrote: This means writing documentation to fully disclose innovative system features Agree. and filing some patents from time to time may become increasingly important for free software projects. Disagree. I, like many people, believe that Software, algorithmic and business method patents should not be permitted, and if one holds that position, one cannot then pursue software and algorithmic patents oneself (at least not without being a hypocrite). Better to work politically for patent reform, and to bust as many software and algorithmic patent applications as possible through prior art objections before they issue. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Thus the patent you describe would make the RAD OMG specification a violation of your patent, since it provides a mechanism to specifically what you say plus a lot more? Note that the RFP for this was issued in February, 1998: http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?corbamed/98-02-23. The result is a specific way to provide the capability you describe in your patent in a scalable, implementable way over a distributed network. Dave Original Message From: Andrew Ho [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: OpenHealth List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 12:54 PM Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Daniel L. Johnson wrote: On Mon, 2004-11-22 at 20:29, Tim Churches wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. More prior art... Dr. Thomas Payne used WAN technology to distribute his own EHR between his clinic, hospital, and local nursing home in 1990, using a DOS-based system. And, of course, there's the Logician Internet software that maintained a central data repository and served practices over the net, circa 1996-98. Dan, But do these prior systems provide the follwing set of functions? comprising the steps of : the consumer causing personal health data to be stored in a secure repository, said repository requiring authentication of the consumer's identity before the consumer is provided access to the repository; the consumer selecting items of personal health data to share and identifying a health care provider, or class of health care providers, to whom access will be provided for those items of personal health data; a health care provider providing authentication of their identity to the consumer's secure repository and being provided access to those items of personal health data of the consumer for which the health care provider has been identified for sharing; the health care provider using the personal health data of the consumer to determine health care advice or the provision of a health care service for the consumer; and the health care provider recording details of the consultation and the advice or service provided to the consumer in the secure repository of health data of the consumer. Quoted from Claim 1 of http://v3.espacenet.com/textclam?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 Prior art that do not read on the claims of the patent are not relevant to this discusssion. Specifically, subset implementation does not infringe a patent. This means if we build software that does not do all the steps spelled out above, it does not infringe. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Andrew Ho wrote: But do these prior systems provide the follwing set of functions? comprising the steps of : the consumer causing personal health data to be stored in a secure repository, said repository requiring authentication of the consumer's identity before the consumer is provided access to the repository; the consumer selecting items of personal health data to share and identifying a health care provider, or class of health care providers, to whom access will be provided for those items of personal health data; a health care provider providing authentication of their identity to the consumer's secure repository and being provided access to those items of personal health data of the consumer for which the health care provider has been identified for sharing; the health care provider using the personal health data of the consumer to determine health care advice or the provision of a health care service for the consumer; and the health care provider recording details of the consultation and the advice or service provided to the consumer in the secure repository of health data of the consumer. Quoted from Claim 1 of http://v3.espacenet.com/textclam?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 Prior art that do not read on the claims of the patent are not relevant to this discusssion. Specifically, subset implementation does not infringe a patent. This means if we build software that does not do all the steps spelled out above, it does not infringe. Yes, Andrew is correct - prior art needs to be specific to the claims, although the prior art does not need to be contained in a single document, as long as the connections between the prior art would be obvious to a person skilled in the domain. The burden of proof for novelty was recently tightened under Australian law (thank goodness for small mercies!), but unfortunately those changes only affect applictaions lodged after 1 April 2002, and the patent application in question was lodged on 14 March 2002. However, I have just revisited Ross Anderson's privacy principles which he developed for the British Medical Association, published in the BMJ and elsewhere in 1996, and available in full form here: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/policy11/policy11.html Andersons' paper describes patient-controlled access control lists, as well as data item-specific access control. He doesn't use the word template but does, of course, use the term access control lists, and the patent application describes a template as being a list. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
David Forslund wrote: Thus the patent you describe would make the RAD OMG specification a violation of your patent, since it provides a mechanism to specifically what you say plus a lot more? If the patent application in question is approved in the US and the patent issues (yes, they have filed a US patent application as well as Australian, UK and Canadian applications) then anyone distributing or using the RAD OMG specification in the US may have to defend themselves against royalty claims in the courts. That's why it is important to oppose such patents to prevent them from issuing. Note that the RFP for this was issued in February, 1998: http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?corbamed/98-02-23. The result is a specific way to provide the capability you describe in your patent in a scalable, implementable way over a distributed network. Yes, definitley more relevant prior art. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Tim Churches wrote: Andrew Ho wrote: Tim, I published this invention back in 1998 titled Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Records. Please see: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/patient-controlled and referenced here: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/oio This work has been online and retrievable via Google and other search engines for many years. Performing a Google search using patient-controlled electronic medical records as the search term retrieves this paper as the first hit. OK, many thanks. Your paper covers many of their claims, although it does not mention controlling selective uploading and access to particular data items via a template, which is also part of their claims Tim, You are welcome! Even if all we have is prior art that reads on their claim 1, then their patent is already significantly narrowed. If you know how to reach any of these 3 inventors, perhaps we ought to invite them to join us for a discussion on the OpenHealth list? - but I have found another paper which desribes that. Do you have an URL or reference that you care to share? But your paper covers their other claims nicely - the more the merrier! ok. I wonder if the Australian pharmacists read my invention and is now trying to steal it? It would be amazing if they neglected to run a Google search on related prior art. :-) Possible but I doubt it. I suspect it is more a case of a set of solutions which are fairly obvious to anyone who considers the problem in detail. Often this type of patent is never used to sue anyone. We should not get too alarmed (yet) but instead read it as any other kind of publication and try to contact the authors. The Pharmacy Guild was part of a multi-sectoral committee which considered design issues for a shared medication record for Australia (now called MediConnect). They just happened to file this patent application just after that design work was winding down - which allegedly came as a surprise to the other committee members. Interesting! Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
I agree, and the OMG has some boiler plate that typically removes them from any patent liability leaving it up to the implementor of the technology. What I have a problem is properly identifying prior art. The background papers clearly cover these issues long before these patents were submitted, but only in a general way by describing the general problem that the patent is dealing with in the specific. There are some more papers that are relevant at: http://cadse.cs.fiu.edu/research_projects/RAD/publications/ I've not checked it out, but the book by Bob Blakley on CORBA Security could have a discussion and early reference, too. I ran into a patent from HR Block wHich basically patented distributed object-based computing in 1995. The fact that this was awarded a patent is a travesty of our patent system. Dave Original Message From: Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: David Forslund [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], Vincent McCauley [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, Nov-23-2004 2:55 PM Subject: Re: A patent application covering EHRs David Forslund wrote: Thus the patent you describe would make the RAD OMG specification a violation of your patent, since it provides a mechanism to specifically what you say plus a lot more? If the patent application in question is approved in the US and the patent issues (yes, they have filed a US patent application as well as Australian, UK and Canadian applications) then anyone distributing or using the RAD OMG specification in the US may have to defend themselves against royalty claims in the courts. That's why it is important to oppose such patents to prevent them from issuing. Note that the RFP for this was issued in February, 1998: http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?corbamed/98-02-23. The result is a specific way to provide the capability you describe in your patent in a scalable, implementable way over a distributed network. Yes, definitley more relevant prior art. Tim C
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Andrew Ho wrote: On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, Tim Churches wrote: Andrew Ho wrote: Tim, I published this invention back in 1998 titled Patient-Controlled Electronic Medical Records. Please see: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/patient-controlled and referenced here: http://www.txoutcome.org/scripts/zope/readings/oio This work has been online and retrievable via Google and other search engines for many years. Performing a Google search using patient-controlled electronic medical records as the search term retrieves this paper as the first hit. OK, many thanks. Your paper covers many of their claims, although it does not mention controlling selective uploading and access to particular data items via a template, which is also part of their claims Tim, You are welcome! Even if all we have is prior art that reads on their claim 1, then their patent is already significantly narrowed. If you know how to reach any of these 3 inventors, perhaps we ought to invite them to join us for a discussion on the OpenHealth list? Why give them more time and material with which to work on ammendmnets to their application to avoid the prior art? The patent application is absolutely without merit, and I for one don't wish to help the applicants in any way. Nor am I interested in passing the time of day by chatting with them. - but I have found another paper which desribes that. Do you have an URL or reference that you care to share? Most of the claim of the patent application with respect to the use of templates to control the uploading and access to specific data items in an EHR record are described in this document by Enrico Coiera, dated Jan 2001 - see page 19 onwards: http://www7.health.gov.au/hsdd/primcare/it/docs/design.doc Sorry, its a word document - not my fault and beyond my control. It would be necessary to establish when the above docment was first revealed (not necessarily published, just revealed to others), but I daresay it was before the priority date of March 2002. But your paper covers their other claims nicely - the more the merrier! ok. I wonder if the Australian pharmacists read my invention and is now trying to steal it? It would be amazing if they neglected to run a Google search on related prior art. :-) Possible but I doubt it. I suspect it is more a case of a set of solutions which are fairly obvious to anyone who considers the problem in detail. Often this type of patent is never used to sue anyone. We should not get too alarmed (yet) but instead read it as any other kind of publication and try to contact the authors. We have had this discussion before... The only reason for applying for a patent is to obtain a state monopoly which allows you to stop others from using your idea, or to extract royalties from them. If all you wish to do is publish your idea in ordr to reveal it to the world, it is far more effective and cheaper just publish a scientific paper, or just make a Web page available. Patent attorneys may well advise you that a patent application is the best way to establish prior art, but then they would say that, wouldn't they? Publication in journals, particularly those indexed by major bibliographies like Pubmed, ISI Web of Science or CiteSeer, are just as good at establishing prior art. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
David Forslund wrote: I agree, and the OMG has some boiler plate that typically removes them from any patent liability leaving it up to the implementor of the technology. What I have a problem is properly identifying prior art. The background papers clearly cover these issues long before these patents were submitted, but only in a general way by describing the general problem that the patent is dealing with in the specific. There are some more papers that are relevant at: http://cadse.cs.fiu.edu/research_projects/RAD/publications/ I've not checked it out, but the book by Bob Blakley on CORBA Security could have a discussion and early reference, too. I ran into a patent from HR Block wHich basically patented distributed object-based computing in 1995. The fact that this was awarded a patent is a travesty of our patent system. Dave Yes indeed. There is an excellent appeal to the EU Council to oppose a forthcoming motion on software patents by some open source software luminaries at: http://nosoftwarepatents.com/en/m/intro/app0411.html Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, David Forslund wrote: Thus the patent you describe would make the RAD OMG specification a violation of your patent, since it provides a mechanism to specifically what you say plus a lot more? Dave, No, if RAD OMG spec is a superset of any subsequent patent, then the patent is invalid. Note that the RFP for this was issued in February, 1998: http://www.omg.org/cgi-bin/doc?corbamed/98-02-23. The result is a specific way to provide the capability you describe in your patent in a scalable, implementable way over a distributed network. Best regards, Andrew --- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Gerard Freriks wrote: Hi, Lets be sensible. A template is nothing but a screen thta can be filled. As far as I know that has been described many times before 2001. Isn't it? Yes, but pointers to papers published prior to 2001 which specifically describe this would be appreciated. Formal and specific evidence of prior art is required to successfully oppose a patent application - in most countries, the whole legal process is weighted in favour of the patent applicant (which is the opposite of the way it ought to be, since the state is granting the applicant a monopoly on the idea). For instance, in Australia (and probably other countries), the burden of proof falls on the opponent to prove lack of novelty, not on the applicant to prove novelty. The applicant needs only to claim novelty and show evidence of a search for prior art. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Andrew Ho wrote: On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, David Forslund wrote: Thus the patent you describe would make the RAD OMG specification a violation of your patent, since it provides a mechanism to specifically what you say plus a lot more? Dave, No, if RAD OMG spec is a superset of any subsequent patent, then the patent is invalid. Yes, but if the patent is issued regardless (as very often seems to happen), then its invalidity needs to be proven in the courts - very expensive. Better to oppose the patent application before it issues, to prevent it ever becoming a patent - still surprisingly expensive, but less expensive that a court case. Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
I agree with this assessment. The HR Block patent I mentioned was going to cost someone a lot of money. The UC/Eolas patent was going to cost M$ over a half billion dollars until it was overturned, so really only the lawyers win in this game. Dave On Tue, November 23, 2004 4:08 pm, Tim Churches said: Andrew Ho wrote: On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, David Forslund wrote: Thus the patent you describe would make the RAD OMG specification a violation of your patent, since it provides a mechanism to specifically what you say plus a lot more? Dave, No, if RAD OMG spec is a superset of any subsequent patent, then the patent is invalid. Yes, but if the patent is issued regardless (as very often seems to happen), then its invalidity needs to be proven in the courts - very expensive. Better to oppose the patent application before it issues, to prevent it ever becoming a patent - still surprisingly expensive, but less expensive that a court case. Tim C -- David Forslund Laboratory Fellow Associate MS T006 Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos, NM 87545
Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:08:57 +1100, Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... Yes, but if the patent is issued regardless (as very often seems to happen), then its invalidity needs to be proven in the courts - very expensive. Tim, Going to court and the associated expense may not be necessary. For US Patents, we can add citation: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxr_1_501.htm#cfr37s1.501 or ask for re-examination: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxr_1_510.htm#cfr37s1.510 Ex partes re-examination costs $2520. Better to oppose the patent application before it issues, to prevent it ever becoming a patent - still surprisingly expensive, Filing a Protest before the patent is issued does not look expensive at all from here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/1900.htm In fact, I don't even see the mention of any filing fee. but less expensive that a court case. Sure, but there are lots of things that can be done before ending up in court. Best regards, Andrew -- Andrew P. Ho, M.D. OIO: Open Infrastructure for Outcomes www.TxOutcome.Org
Re: when published spec predates patent, was Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Andrew Ho wrote: On Wed, 24 Nov 2004 10:08:57 +1100, Tim Churches [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ... Yes, but if the patent is issued regardless (as very often seems to happen), then its invalidity needs to be proven in the courts - very expensive. Tim, Going to court and the associated expense may not be necessary. For US Patents, we can add citation: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxr_1_501.htm#cfr37s1.501 or ask for re-examination: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/appxr_1_510.htm#cfr37s1.510 Ex partes re-examination costs $2520. I am not certain, but here in Asutralia I don't think there is any mechanism for requesting re-examination by the patent office of a patent which has been issued and sealed. You need to take it to court. Better to oppose the patent application before it issues, to prevent it ever becoming a patent - still surprisingly expensive, Filing a Protest before the patent is issued does not look expensive at all from here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/1900.htm In fact, I don't even see the mention of any filing fee. The cost of lodging opposition to a patent before it issues here in Asutralia is AUD$550. However, if the opposition is not upheld, then the opposer is liable to pay for the patent applicants' costs in responding to the opposition. The entire system is stacked in favour of the aptent applicant, which is wrong. but less expensive that a court case. Sure, but there are lots of things that can be done before ending up in court. Well, here in Asutralia, issue of the patent can be opposed. If that fails, then court or settlement are the only options, I think (but IANAL). Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: A patent application covering EHRs
Gerard Freriks wrote: Hi, How serious is it really? If the patent is approved, it is potentially serious for anyone wishing to use or sell EHR ssytems which use the features in its claims. They hve only submitted applications in Australia, UK, US and Canada, so other countries would be unaffected. No matter how ridiculous the patent may seem, if it issues it can cause really grief. Is there anybody with a legal opinion? I only have a laymans opinion about this ridiculous patent. Gerard ps: A few snippets from en CEN/TC251 standard published in 1999. CEN/TC251 ENV 13606: 1. Scope This European Prestandard specifies messages that enable exchange of electronic healthcare record informationbetween healthcare parties responsible for the provision of clinical care to an individual patient. These messages allow information from an electronic healthcare record held by one health professional to be sent to another healthprofessional. The messages specified by this European Prestandard can be used to convey: a complete copy of a patient's record as stored in one information system; parts of a patient's record that form a logically sound extract or summary of that record; parts of a patient's record used for updating a parallel record on another system. The primary purpose of these messages is to support the provision of care to individual patients. The availability ofconsistent, continuing clinical care, when and where it is needed, requires appropriate and unambiguous communication between clinical professionals. The messages specified by this European Prestandard are designed to meet thisrequirement by enabling users of different clinical information systems to exchange electronic healthcare record information. Implementation of these messages will therefore assist the maintenance of timely and appropriate patientrecords. With a definition of Health care party: -- 3.39. healthcare party. Organisation or person involved in the direct or indirect provision of healthcare services to an individual or to a population. -- Met andere woorden. Hetgeen functioneel beschrven staat is omvat in de CEN voornorm voor het EPD. The concept Template is mentioned. Any input screen is a template. And before 1999 this concept was defined and in use. As far as Access Control is concerned Part 3 of the CEN/TC251 ENV 13606 is about the expression of elements needed for access control. 1 Scope This European prestandard specifies data objects for describing rules for distribution or sharing of electronic healthcare records in whole or in part. This European prestandard establishes general principles for the interaction of these data objects with other components and mechanisms within an electronic healthcare record application, thereby controlling the distribution of electronic healthcare records in whole or in part. This European prestandard establishes ways of creating information with associated security attributes. This European prestandard defines a methodology for constructing rules built from defined data objects, capable of being implemented using a range of techniques, to effect the control of sharing of electronic healthcare record data. This European prestandard establishes principles that allow security policies to be implemented and incorporated in order to ensure the safe use of the data. This European prestandard specifies a method for constructing an Access Log, that can be rendered human viewable, that records distribution of the data to which a Distribution Rule is attached. This European prestandard does not specify the mechanisms and functions that take part within the negotiation procedure and therefore fully automate the data distribution process. This European prestandard does not specify the mechanisms and functions that will allow some systems to continuously reauthenticate the data communication session and monitor its integrity. This European prestandard allows the sharing of records distributed in space, time or responsibility. This European prestandard does not specify the data objects and packages represented in an Information System. At this moment I have no time to browse further. But on the website of NIST more is to be found about Role based Access published before 1999. And persons like Bernd Blobel and Ross Anderson wrote about security in health care Yes, Andersons' BMA privacy principles paper from 1996 is full of prior art for this patent application. Thanks, Tim C -- private -- Gerard Freriks, arts Huigsloterdijk 378 2158 LR Buitenkaag The Netherlands +31 252 544896 +31 654 792800 On 23 Nov 2004, at 03:29, Tim Churches wrote: There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. These concerns are reported here: http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/
A patent application covering EHRs
There is some concern here in Australia over a patent application lodged by the Pharmacy Guild of Australia over some rather generic features of EHRs. These concerns are reported here: http://australianit.news.com.au/common/print/0,7208,11467621%5E15319%5E%5Enb%20v%5E15306,00.html or here: http://snipurl.com/atst The application has been lodged under the international PCT (patent co-operation treaty), and it appears that country level applications have been lodged in at least the UK, Canada and the US, as well as Australia. At a glance, there would not appear to be much in the way of novelty in the claims, and several groups here in Australia plan to lodge objections to the application. Others may wish to object to the applications in their own countries. If anyone can suggest clear prior art which was published before April 2002, and ideally before April 2001, then please let me know (or post details to this list so the prior art can be shared around). The details of the patent application, and a related one filed on the same date, are as follows: METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SHARING PERSONAL HEALTH DATA can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?CY=epLG=enF=4IDX=WO02073456DB=EPODOCQPN=WO02073456 or here: http://snipurl.com/atol Click on the tabs at the top to see the details of the patent claims. The details of the CR Group application for METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR SECURE INFORMATION can be found here: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPODOCIDX=WO02073455F=0 or here: http://snipurl.com/ator The filing dates for both are 14 march 2002, with earliest priority dates of 14 March 2001. Just to whet your appetite, here is Claim 1 of the Pharmacy Guild application: CLAIMS : 1. A method for a health care provider to obtain personal health data relating to a consumer, the method comprising the steps of : the consumer causing personal health data to be stored in a secure repository, said repository requiring authentication of the consumer's identity before the consumer is provided access to the repository; the consumer selecting items of personal health data to share and identifying a health care provider, or class of health care providers, to whom access will be provided for those items of personal health data; a health care provider providing authentication of their identity to the consumer's secure repository and being provided access to those items of personal health data of the consumer for which the health care provider has been identified for sharing; the health care provider using the personal health data of the consumer to determine health care advice or the provision of a health care service for the consumer; and the health care provider recording details of the consultation and the advice or service provided to the consumer in the secure repository of health data of the consumer. If this patent issues, we (or our govts) may find ourselves having to pay royalties to the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to use any EHR applications which meet this description, or having to challenge the patent in court (expensive). Hence there is value in demolishing it with prior art in the application stage - assuming that it survives the examination phase (which it shouldn't, but as we know, the US patent office seems willing to approve a patent for just about anything, no matter how obvious or well-known the idea is, and the Australian patent office managed to issue an innovation patent for the wheel a few years ago...true!). Tim C signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
