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From: kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)
Subject: Re: Decoding an octet stream
Date: 1999/12/02
Message-ID: <1999Dec2.081944.1@eisner>#1/1
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References: <877lj2q36g.fsf@deneb.cygnus.argh.org>
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 <8233fm$ngf$1@nntp3.atl.mindspring.net>
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 <825g04$qri$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>
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Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-12-02T00:00:00+00:00
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In article <825g04$qri$1@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net>, swhalen@netcom.com writes:

> Part of the problem is that it doesn't matter that _I_ know that this
> is prior art and/or obvious. Only if I was sued by the patent holder
> (or some other way got myself into court with lawyers and the whole
> bit), would I have "standing" to _force_ the Patent Office to "listen"
> to why I thought this particular application was obvious / prior art
> ...

But when you do get called into court you merely have to prove there
is prior art, not that the prior art you cite is the exact prior art
you considered when you used the technique.

I recall a newspaper ad searching for something like "prior art"
regarding a lawsuit over the song "Let's Go" by the Routers. The
lawyers in question were looking for people who knew of a certain
rhythmic hand-clap and song being used by cheerleaders before year
X, where the rhythm was:

	. .   ...   ....   oo

and the cogniscenti will recognize that the dots above are handclaps
whereas the "oo" in the recorded version are the words "let's go",
and the "prior art" in this copyright case might presumably use
the name of a team or some other slogan for the "oo".

Since then, Al Gore has invented the Internet, so asking others for
evidence of prior art is cheaper than placing newspaper ads.

Larry Kilgallen