Harry Veeder wrote: In terms of timing, the role of the patent office should be to decide who *published* the idea first,
That would be difficult to prove. It is easy to fake a publication. Especially if you are talking about a printed book anyone can print one now with a date from five years ago. An Internet message or publication can easily be faked. Some time ago I posted info. on how to deliberately put an invention into the public domain. See: http://www.publicdomainideas.org/index.php/Main_Page QUOTE "Public Domain Ideas (PDI) is a place where ideas and inventions can be submitted to the public domain. It's like open-source software, but for ideas instead of code. Once an idea is submitted to PDI, it immediately goes into the public domain and cannot be patented. That means anyone is free to develop the concept without fear of litigation, and without having to pay licensing fees." - Jed
