<http://www.ipjur.com/03.php3> <http://www.ipjur.com/2004_03_01_archive.php3#107902171366471476>
Ex-post Censorship of published Patent Documents? Dan Gillmor writes in his blog: "[...] Bruce Schneier, in an e-mail, writes: In October 1962, the U.S. Patent Office granted patent [...]165 regarding the use of ricin as a biological weapon. Published patents are, of course, publicly available. That's the point. All US patents are available from the USPTO website: "full-text since 1976, full-page images since 1790." However, for some reason, this particular patent is no longer in the database: Clicking on "Images" only produces a "Patent not found" image. The patent is still available in foreign databases, so it seems like a rather futile exercise if the removal was due to concerns about knowledge of WMDs. This hiding of public information is just the sort of thing we need to fight against. If the bad guys can get a copy of the patent without any trouble, how is this helping? Comments That's the traditional American way to deal with problems. If you hide from it long enough it will go away. Just like teen pregnancies will stop if we hide nudity from television.... [...]" Is this the beginning of a more widespread attempt to establish something like an ex-post patent database censorship? [...] -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
