David Guest wrote: > Tim Churches wrote: >> Please see below. I have converted the attachment to plain text and >> included it below, as well. >> >> I have asked jenny how we can access a copy of the patent application - >> I can see teh application details, but not the application itself in the >> IP Australia Web site. How did we access it in 2004? Alas, the old GPCG >> archives are no searchable - what a shame, what a loss of community memory. >> >> Tim C >> >> -------- Original Message -------- >> Subject: FW: Email to Tim Churches and GPCG >> Date: Tue, 6 Feb 2007 18:58:38 +1100 >> From: Jenny Laffey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: 'Tim Churches' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> CC: 'Vincent McCauley' <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> >> Dear Tim >> >> During 2004, you co-ordinated a lively email discussion on the GPCG list >> with respect to the Pharmacy Guild patent for consumer-controlled EHR. >> This patent application is still in the system and due for examination >> shortly. The MSIA is planning to oppose this patent and we have compiled >> this list of 'prior art' (i.e. prior to the provisional patent >> application date of 14 March 2001). >> >> If GPCG members would like to recommend any further references that we >> can include in this submission to the Patents Commissioner, we would >> appreciate your input. You will notice we already used some of the >> information in your email conversations in this document. Would you >> mind circulating to the GPGG email list to contribute if they wish? >> Apologies in advance to those GPCG participants who are also in MSIA - >> they will have got this twice. MSIA will be sending this list to the >> Patents Commissioner by the end of the month. >> >> Cheers and many thanks >> >> Jenny Laffey >> (On behalf of MSIA Management Committee) >> >> > > I think we are taking the wrong tack, Tim. If the Feds don't mind the > pharmacists stealing their plans then why should we or the MSIA care.
Because patents only have an impact on those who implement the ideas they contain, and we all know that the Feds never actually implement anything - they leave that to "the market", States and Territory governments and NGOs. So for the Feds, patents are someone else's problem. That's why they don't care. > Besides think of all the money the pharmacists can get out of the > Europeans and Americans once the patents goes through. Nuh. Patents are a double-edge sword on which even the handle is sharpened and liable to cut the wielder. If a patent is infringed, the govt in the respective country doesn't go out and enforce it on behalf of the patent holder. Thus, the patent holder still has to pay for civil action to protect their patent, even if it has been granted and "sealed". And due to the extremely dubious validity of the claims in the applied-for Pharmacy Guild patent, they would almost certainly have to go to court in order to extract money out of US companies. Witness the huge amounts of (public) money the CSIRO has thrown into trying to defend its granted and sealed US and European patent on some core aspects of wi-fi technology, and the fact that despite a recent ruling in it favour in a minor US court, it still has to go through higher courts to get any money, *and* it is facing counter-suits against its belated (the patent was granted over a decade ago...) claims for royalties from Microsoft, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard and Netgear - see http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,20475012%5E15409%5E%5Enbv%5E15306-15322,00.html Hmm, come to think of it, it might be interesting to see the Pharmacy Guild of Australia counter-sued by companies like Microsoft for trying to extract royalties on a patent for which there is so much prior art. Note also that Europe does not recognise algorithmic, software or business methods patents, so it won't hold any water there. > It can only be > good for the country, right? Only good for the lawyers and patent attorneys, I'm afraid. Everyone else loses. > And anywho, it's not like we're going to > try to do this sort of thing here. See comment above about the Feds not actually implementing anything. Tim C _______________________________________________ Gpcg_talk mailing list [email protected] http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk
