Re: flargin web patents by UC academics?!?!?!

Roy T. Fielding (fielding@kiwi.ics.uci.edu)
Mon, 02 Aug 1999 00:04:42 -0700


>I was asked about prior art on yet another flargin web patent today...
>
>US5838906: Distributed hypermedia method for automatically
> invoking external application providing interaction and display
> of embedded objects within a hypermedia document
>http://www.patents.ibm.com/details?pn=US05838906__
>
>since when do academics flargin patent their ideas?

All the time. Particularly when they are working on something that isn't
publishable as research. Something like seven out of ten variations of
the strawberry are patented by UCI. So every time you eat a strawberry
you are contributing a little bit to the UC infrastructure. Back in the
early 90s, when the aerospace economy collapsed and the state was having
a hard time even printing paychecks, the UC was desperate for money sources
outside of California taxes.

That's the same stupid Doyle patent that people have been refuting
since it first surfaced in 1994. Viola is prior art, end of story.
Doyle is not considered an academic by anyone, least of all UC. He was
just enough of a schister to get the University to pay for the application
while he was working on medical information systems at UCSF, and then
give his later company exclusive rights. The University got ripped-off.

....Roy