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
