When using the RPG, an expert selects the type of case, type of report, types of technologies involved, types of tools used, and expert background profiles from a GUI. Then a Microsoft Word draft report is generated that includes all of the selected generic information intermixed with blank sections where case-specific information should be filled in manually.

Currently, many experts either dig through their prior works to find specific descriptions or write them from scratch each time. Maintaining a library of generic report elements is a challenge, especially when multiple experts are involved. RPG acts as a version control system between multiple experts who can upload and download detailed descriptions of experts, technologies, and tools from a central server. The reports are generated according to specific formats, so an entire team of experts can easily produce reports that are consistently formatted with the most up-to-date descriptions.

RPG also keeps synced descriptions of CodeSuite, so it can include the most up-to-date descriptions and pricing of the tools without having to search the S.A.F.E. website or CodeSuite help files.

If you’re interested in trying out RPG, contact our Sales Department.

Still confused? So are many others. Except for Bilski who now knows for sure that he doesn’t have a patent. Looking at it as an inventor, I see that the court has broadened the scope of patentable materials, which is good, but has made the test for patentability muddier which means I will spend even more time and more money arguing with patent examiners. Looking at it as an expert witness for patent litigation, this ruling is sure to cause a lot more disagreements, which means a lot more litigation, which means a lot more business for me.

An excellent discussion of the Bilski ruling can be found at Patently-O, written by Dennis Crouch,
Associate Professor at the University of Missouri School of Law. His regular columns on patents are the best ones available anywhere.

• Secrets comprise two-thirds of the value of firms’ information portfolios.
• Compliance, not security, drives security budgets. 
• Firms focus on preventing accidents, but theft is where the money is.
• The more valuable a firm’s information, the more incidents it will have.
• CISOs do not know how effective their security controls actually are.

Download the report to report to get the details.

Background

Though each attempt at patent reform is slightly different, the major points are usually the same. Those who support the bill tend to be large engineering companies. Those who do not support the bill tend to be universities, small inventors, and pharmaceutical companies.

Proposed changes to which I object:

• First to File: Right now the person who invents something (“first-to-invent”) has the rights to the patent. The bill would change the law so that the rights belong to the first person to file the patent (“first-to-file”), as it works in every other country. However, the US is the most innovative country in the world and the rest of the world should look to us not the other way around. This change will favor the large company with lots of lawyers and money to file patents quickly over the small inventors and the universities that don’t have as many resources to file patents. Pharmaceutical companies do have a lot of lawyers and a lot of money, but they spend so much money on research and development that on the small chance that some other company files for a patent first, they have a lot to lose.
• Additional Post Grant Review: Within 12 months of issuance, a third party can file a cancellation petition based on any ground of invalidity. This means that even after a patent is filed, there is a one year period where the patent owner must defend his patent. Any large company can simply request a review of the patent by the USPTO that the patent holder must fight. This will waste resources of the small inventor. Once a patent is issued it should be valid and should be difficult to overturn. The cost of overturning it should rest with the organization that objects to it, not the patent holder. The problem that reform should really be addressing is making the patent examination more efficient so that good patent applications get issued quickly and bad patent applications get rejected quickly.

Proposed change that I like:

• Pre-Issuance Submissions: Third parties can submit prior art during examination of the patent as well as a statement regarding the relevance of the art. This means that those organizations that believe that patent is invalid should submit invalidating reasons before the patent is granted, not after. This will be useful only if it is used to speed up the patent process, not slow it down. I’m in favor of anything to speed up the process and make sure that innovative inventions are issued patents quickly and poor inventions are detected and rejected quickly.

Proposed changes that about which I don’t have enough information
to evaluate:

• Damages: When a party is found to infringe on a patent, the damages are limited based on the importance of the invention to the infringer’s overall business.
• Patent Litigation Venue: Some areas of the country are believed to be more friendly to plaintiffs (e.g. the Eastern District of Texas). This provision limits the ability to bring a case in a district unless there is some legal connection to that district.

There are other provisions about which I don’t hold strong opinions and don’t seem particularly controversial, but almost everyone involved
with patents has strong opinions about patent reform. It will be interesting (and possibly scary) to see what, if anything, eventually happens.

Actually no. The real inventors of the digital computer were physics professor John Atanasoff and his student Clifford Berry who created the first digital computer in a laboratory at Iowa State University. The ABC (“Atanasoff-Berry Computer“) was built in 1939, yet by the time of ENIAC’s introduction to the world, the ABC had been forgotten. What had happened? World War II broke out and the University of Iowa as well as Atanasoff and Berry simply didn’t realize the power of what they had created. Atanasoff was called up by the Navy to do physics research, eventually participating in the atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll.

When Atanasoff returned to Iowa state he found that his invention was gone to make room for other equipment—because the ABC was built piece-by-piece in the laboratory, it was too big to move out and so it had to be dismantled. Iowa State had decided that a patent was too expensive and so never filed one. John Atanasoff went on to gain recognition for a number of inventions involving physics, but the ABC was mostly forgotten.

In the 1970s there were a handful of companies that saw the great potential in the electronic computer. Sperry Rand Corporation, which was formed through a series of mergers and acquisitions including the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation, held U.S. Patent 3,120,606 for the digital computer. In 1973, Sperry Rand sued Honeywell, Inc. and Honeywell reciprocated. Thus began one of the most important intellectual property cases in history.

During the research for this case, Honeywell found out about John Atanasoff and the ABC, which became pivotal information. The case was tried for 7 months after which Judge Earl R. Larson handed down his decision that stated, among other things, that the Eckert-Mauchly patent was invalid.

Some people have disputed this finding, arguing that this was a “legal” finding or a “loophole” or that a lawyer or a judge simply couldn’t understand the complex engineering issues involved. Here’s my take on this.

1. Both sides had a lot of time, and access to technical experts, to make the best case they could.
2. So much was at stake, and a huge amount of money was spent to bring out the truth. Both sides had very significant resources. If a case with this much at stake could not convince a judge after seven months, then there is little hope for any IP case.
3. Evidence was found and witness verified that John Atanasoff had attended a conference in Philadelphia where he met John Mauchly and described his work. He then invited Mauchly out to Iowa where Mauchly spent several days examining Atanasoff’s computer and many late nights reading Atanasoff’s technical specifications. Letters were produced, signed by Mauchly, that thanked Atanasoff for his hospitality and for the tour of his amazing invention.
4. Mauchly testified at the trial. He admitted that he had met Atanasoff and eventually admitted that he had examined the ABC and read its specification.
5. Mauchly and Sperry Rand Corporation were challenged to produce a single piece of evidence that Mauchly or Eckert had written about or researched digital electronics before Mauchly’s meeting with Atanasoff. The best Mauchly could do was produce a circuit for a model railway flasher that he claimed was a binary counter—it counted from 0 to 1 and then back to 0.

In fact, it became clear that Mauchly and Eckert attempted to claim much more credit than they deserved and tried to deny credit to others. They had actually greatly improved on Atanasoff’s original design. Had Eckert and Mauchly been more humble, had they added Atanasoff’s name to their patent, had they patented their own improvements instead of the entire invention, they may have given Sperry Rand the most powerful IP in technology history. Instead the invention of the computer entered the public domain without restriction, and the rest is history…

For a good book on the subject, read The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story by Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks.

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• Swedish man indicted in 2004 Cisco code theft
• Cisco makes peace with Free Software Foundation
• Facebook loses lawsuit against German clone StudiVZ
• China backs down on installing blocking software
• iPhone game accused of plagiarizing flOw
• Programmer accused of stealing Goldman Sachs source code
• UBS files code theft lawsuit
• 10th Circuit strips Novell of Unix copyright
• Skype’s founders sue EBay over copyright infringement
• StoneLoops! of Jurassica pulled from App Store due to copyright complaint?
• Microsoft lifts GPL code, uses in Microsoft Store tool
• Judge rules for Apple in Psystar case
• Copyright infringement lawsuit filed against Palm
• Symantec wins $545 million decision in federal tax case
• Best Buy, JVC, Samsung, more hit with lawsuit
• Microsoft joint venture in China plagiarizes competitor
• Seagate misappropriated Convolve technology, says ex-employee

If you have a research idea relating to code analysis, and you can use the SAFE tools, let us know. Email Larry Melling, VP of Sales and Marketing with your ideas. If they pass our review process you’ll get free licenses to our tools, free support, and help getting your results published. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.