User talk:Nowa

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[edit] Business method patent

You're welcome. Thanks for your contribution to this article as well! It's getting nicer and nicer every day. --Edcolins 07:44, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks as well. Nice expansion. --Edcolins 16:09, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] United States Patent and Trademark Office cleanup

See also Talk:United States Patent and Trademark Office. --Edcolins 08:08, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Thank you

for being a good sport about the discussion taking place at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Salvador Minguijon Perez. It's a rare trait to find in an editor, and I hope you'll not be discouraged but continue your contributions to Wikipedia. (ESkog)^(Talk) 05:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

ESkog, not at all. For me it's a learning experience so that my future contributions can be more constructive. --Nowa 13:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• I'll add my thanks for your rational and constructive contributions to the Patent jock AfD discussion. rodii 19:16, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Your message

My pleasure; for actual content I'm afraid that I'm limited to what I happen to find on the Web, but at least I can help out with the Wikipedia styling. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 15:38, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exculpatory opinion

Do you see any difference between a clearance opinion and an exculpatory opinion? I would like to make it a redirect to clearance search and opinion. --Edcolins 19:56, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

• At the risk of displaying my ignorance, I'm not familiar with the term "exculpatory opinion". If, as far as you know, it means the same thing as clearance opinion, then I have no problem with a redirect. Regards. --Nowa 23:01, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Research in Motion

Hi, the editor that contacted me asked me to revert the page for the same reasons as on March 10th (at that time I reverted out a copyright violation) I reverted today because I trusted that editor's judgement, myself not knowing anything about this subject. Please leave a message at User talk:70.29.22.85 to know what his or her motives were.--Adam ^(talk) 16:56, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Adam, Thanks for the explanation. I've Wikified the references. I hope this addresses your concerns.--Nowa 22:16, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

last edit looks alot better Nowa - i'll comment later PDAgeek 01:23, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

thanks. I also did some work on the NTP article.--Nowa 01:28, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

ok done - have a look on my talk page - i did a step by step edit so you could check my rational - do the same there if you think it need revision - if not then just cut and paste to RIM.PDAgeek 05:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

?? from ntp page - In two of the cases, the rejections have been made "final". just before the final court date i think the USPTO rejected all of NTP's patents. have a look at in your research PDAgeek 02:47, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

PDAgeek. Thanks for the inquiry and follow up. Almost all patent applications are rejected on their first office action. This is especially true in a reexamination of a high profile case like NTP. The applicant then presents counter arguments and amends their claims to get around the rejection. If they succeed, then the patent is allowed. If they fail, they get a second "final" rejection. The rejection is only final in the sense that the patent office wants another fee paid before continuing the negotiation. In the case of the two NTP final rejections, NTP chose to appeal the decisions instead. They have three levels of appeal to go before all avenues have been exhausted. (Board of appeals, Court of appeals, Supreme court). You can see the details of each case at [1]. Click on the cases that begin with a 90. Those are rexaminations. Then click on the "image file wrapper" tabs to see the details of the correspondance between the patent office an NTP. --Nowa 13:46, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

yes but I’m referring to final rejection of all 5 patents in dispute - not 2 as you state. In addition, a final office action as I understand it, means all appeals material and arguments provided by NTP since the first office action rejection have not changed the minds of the examiners that all claims are rejected. As far as the USPTO is concerned, they have rejected the patents. Of course, NTP has other “legal” appeals they may want to pursue, however if they don’t start an appeal in court in 60 days the patents are automatically invalidated. Regardless, my point is, top USPTO technical experts have now firmly agreed that the patents should never have been issued in the first place due to prior art. It is unlikely this decision will be overturned in a court of law or any other Board appeal. All reference to the USPTO has been removed from the RIM page, which is a key part of the story. You have stated on the BB page that RIM used NTP technology, well not according to the latest findings of the USPTO and until the mater is resolved then I think this statement is incorrect. Furthermore Nowa please remember we get only 1% of all the info, 99% is confidential. Please comment. PDAgeek 03:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

PDAgeek, Excellent comments. Since you’ve raised a lot of good issues, let me answer in stages over the next couple of days. Let me also state up front the limitations of my knowledge. I am a registered US patent agent and as such, I am authorized to represent clients in front of the USPTO. That means that I draft patent applications for clients and help them get approval for their patent applications at the patent office. The work I do is no different from that of a patent attorney, except I do not represent clients in court, such as in patent infringement cases.

My specialty is Business method patents. I’m also patented inventor myself with 17 patents in the chemical industry from my former career as a research engineer.

That being said, one of the most important things to realize about patent law is that A patent shall be presumed valid (35 USC 282). Thus, until NTP has exhausted all of its appeals of the patent office’s current rejection of their claims or unless they decide to abandon their patents, their patents are presumed valid by the courts, even if they are undergoing reexamination. I realize this may not seem just, but it’s for the protection of inventors. Otherwise deep pocket corporations could file one reexamination after another and an inventor would never be able to enforce his/her patent.

Does this make sense?--Nowa 11:02, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes it does and I’m aware of it. Seems our backgrounds are similar – I’m a wireless engineer and inventor – however no legal training like yourself. I understand and fully agree with your above and the legal aspects of this story however, I have problems with the truth from an engineering and social perspective. I view the legal truth established by the jury in opposition to the technical truth established by the USPTO during their final re-examinations and rejection of NTP’s patents – a decision which I believe is almost never overturned on appeal. As an engineer, examining the record, I would be inclined to follow the advice of the patent office experts. An example of this is the willful verdict. How can it be willful when RIM had no previous knowledge of NTP’s inventions? Of course it is the legal truth which forced the settlement, but is this the rational truth taking all other issues into account? Here lies the conflict of perception between the legal truth and the rational truth of these circumstances. When the rule of law is used to conclude a scientific truth which is in opposition to the scientific authorities then we’ve all got a serious problem. This is why I believe in documenting any aspect of RIM’s patent infringe, both issues must be simultaneously stated. With the theme or caveat - the Jury found RIM guilty and the USPTO has found the patents invalid. RIM was called “guilty” as of the jury verdict when it occurred regardless of appeals just as the patents must be called “invalid” as of the USPTO verdict regardless of appeals. In both cases it wasn’t the “legal” truth because of appeals pending however, it is the factual reality. Does this make sense? PDAgeek 23:20, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

It does. And I agree that the scientific, social and legal aspects are all important. I might also add the political aspects are important as well. Alas, I'm really only qualified to address the patent aspects.

That being said, I'm not sure why you think that the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences "almost never" overturns an examiner's final rejection. If you take a look at page 134 of the USPTO's annual report for 2005, you will see that the Board of Appeals reverses examiner's final rejections about 50% of the time. Here's a link [2]

I see affirmed and reversals about the same but that's the total process. I don't see any numbers for after final reexamination. is your page right? PDAgeek 03:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)Your reference to affirmed and reversals are for patent applications AND reexaminations. What are the stats for the Boards reversal of final reexaminations? PDAgeek 00:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find those number. There may not be enough to be statistically significant.--Nowa 01:00, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Regarding the assertion that RIM "didn't know" about the NTP patents, again, I'm not sure what gave you that impression. I haven't read the trial transcripts, but at least one newspaper article that covered the story states that NTP sent RIM a letter informing them of the existence of the patent and offered them a license in 2001. They only sued RIM in 2002 after RIM didn't respond. Here's a link to the article. [3] Since RIM was informed of the existence of the patent and since they still chose to continue to infringe it without getting an outside legal opinion, that makes their infringement willfull.--Nowa 23:51, 10 April 2006 (UTC) yes i see - only after they knew and didn't stop. yes and the judge did that PDAgeek 03:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, I double checked on the status of the reexaminations. It appears that the only patent facing a final rejection in the reexaminations is US 6,067,451. Have I missed something?--Nowa 23:57, 10 April 2006 (UTC) i'm not sure if that is one of the 5 in the case, all of which have recieved final office action, or one of the first 8.PDAgeek 03:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC) I’ve seen in several media reports that all 5 patents in question have received final office action rejection, the last one the day before Judge Spencer’s final hearing on Feb 23rd. – does your research confirm this or is it RIM propaganda. PDAgeek 00:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Hard to say. I'd have to see media reports and compare with USPTO records.--Nowa 21:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

any comment on my equating "guilty" and "invalid" before appeals. PDAgeek 03:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

PS i now see your concerns with this - the defence of the rights of the small patent holder.PDAgeek 03:56, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Nowa, I believe RIM licensed all the rights to the patents so NTP cannot take action against anyone else (took a bullet). So the reexaminations are a moot issue. They are of no use to NTP or RIM (if they actually bought them) because they wouldn’t stand up in court. I believe there is far more prior art than has been reported. I don’t think NTP is going to spend any money on defending these patents because they are unenforceable. So Nowa, under this scenario what will happen to the patents??

I forgot about Nokia - but i think rim may have bought all the rights so they may be getting or have cancelled the fees - we don't know. My interpretation of the RIM comment “the patents are toast” not meaning they are invalid but that RIM bought all the rights hence NTP will have no interest in defending them because they can't use them. PDAgeek 01:15, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

note the last 2 paragraphs are just speculation PDAgeek 00:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

PDAgeek, I took at look at the file wrapper for the reexaminations related to one of the patents at issue in the NTP v RIM lawsuit, US 5,436,960 ('960). You can see it here [4]. It's clear the NTP is still vigorously defending it's right to the '960 patent. I don't find this particularly surprising. These cases are often more about pride than hard headed business sense. NTP is going to want vindication and confirmation of the validity of their patents. With a kitty of $600 million, they can afford a lot of legal work to continue pressing their case. Furthermore, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility of NTP going after other providers of mobile email service that are not partners of RIM. RIM's direct competitors, for example.

Yes the 960 is the foundation of all the others. I read it a few years ago. The first 50 claims sounded like Mobitex – a US system operational on Feb 1991. However, Mobitex was a 1990’s system with an email mailbox built into it. NTP’s invention is the gateway between a one-way paging system and a computer networked email system – covering all of the many types of email systems at the time. But NTP’s gateway is exactly how RIM connects to cellular data systems of today which enables the push email dynamics. So any company that uses a push email technology or any device that uses RIM’s system (palm, treo etc) may also be infringing. That being said, we still don’t know the agreement and I suspect for that amount of money RIM purchased all the rights blocking NTP from addressing other infringements. PDAgeek 00:17, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

What do you mean by "all the rights"?--Nowa 01:03, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

BTW, three RIM competitors, Visto, Nokia, and Good Technology have all licensed the NTP patents as of Dec 2005 [5]--Nowa 01:18, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

In exchange for not seeking damages if the patents don’t survive RIM seeks what is essentially ownership of all the future patent rights. You’d have to be crazy to turn it down for 600m if all your patents were facing possible extinction anyway. Note NTP bought Visto and Good shares. That’s a weird kind of licensing agreement. Why wouldn’t they just take them to court or collect fees instead of spending money on buying into them? By the way do you have any information on who are the 20 or so NTP partners that invested in the company over the past few years? PDAgeek 02:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the specific NTP investment partners, but it is not uncommon for investors to put up the cost of legal fees in a patent infringement case if the patent owner's case looks good.--Nowa 21:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as RIM demanding an exclusive right to the NTP patents, I can't imagine NTP agreeing to that once RIM had been convicted of patent infringement. RIM might have been able to do that, however, if they had responded more positively to NTPs original letter of inquiry.--Nowa 21:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as NTP buying into Visto and Good Shares, it seems like a shrewd move to me. It put more pressure on RIM to settle since NTP was not only threatening to shut them down, but they were investing in their competitors as well.--Nowa 21:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

All of the above IMHO.--Nowa 21:41, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as the merits of RIM's position v. NTP's position, that's impossible to make a snap judgement on. I reviewed some of the filings of both, and is often the case, they both make good points. What you haven't heard, for example, is how the patent office is giving NTPs claims a wider interpretation than the Courts did. This means that it will be easier for them to apply prior art to invalidate the claims. In my experience, this is common in the patent office. If this case does get appealed to the courts, it will be interesting to see how they rule on the meaning of the claims. If they apply the meaning to the claims that they've already given them, they may very well overturn the patent office and find the patents valid.

I think what you refer to as wider USPTO interpretation may be the same systems vs methods problem the appeals court had to deal with. They overturned some of the infringement claims of Spencer’s court rulings and upheld some as well. (partial appeals success by RIM) remember Spencer didn’t impose the full willful penalty either. As I said my guess is the claims will never get to court for my reasons (speculation) above. PDAgeek 02:55, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Another interesting issue is whether or not the court will accept the "Telenor" reference as prior art. This is the key previously unconsidered document. Only one copy existed in a library in Norway. The only indexing of it was by a title, authors and short summary not directly related to mobile email. The legal question is was this document sufficiently in the public domain to be considered a "publication" and hence prior art. NTP says it wasn't because a person skilled in the art seeking to solve the problem of mobile email would not have been able to find it without an "unreasonable" search (like what RIM had to go through to find it). The patent office disagrees. It will probably be up to the courts to decide.

That’s a great point, I agree with NTP – this stuff is from Mars. However it’s the only thing that was reported to the media – the rest non-disclosed – so we really have no idea what they independently looked at. PDAgeek 03:13, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

As I've said above, all of it is disclosed on the USPTO web site. By law, all reexamination proceedings must be open to the public. See ref 4.--Nowa 21:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

This will be a fun one to watch. NTP has until 4/24 to file an appeal to the Board of Appeals in the patent office. Stay tuned.--Nowa 22:09, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

You say you have seen they are vigorously defending the '960 patent. When was their last date of submission or action to the USPTO – was it before or after the agreement? PDAgeek 03:13, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

The filed amended claims on 24 March 2006. Settlement date was 3 March 2006. I'd say NTP is going all the way with this.--Nowa 21:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I see, looks like my speculation on the agreement is wrong. i'll read the reexam and new claims tonight - thanks for the link - "all the way" maybe but the edits look extreme. PDAgeek 23:20, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I read all the Tecknor stuff - it's Mobitex + x400 gateway in 1986 PDAgeek 01:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm impressed. I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Not my field. Bottom line, though, does it have everything you need for mobile push email? Anything missing? Any problems that would need a lot of work to solve?--Nowa 02:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes I was impressed too. Problems? I don’t know legally but 1) Norway didn’t build it, according to an article on the mobitex page Norwegian telecom bought Mobitex in 1988 which has no x400 gateway. 2) x400 did not become the defacto standard for email system connectivity, but it was the certified standard at the time. 3) your point, on obscurity is THE issue. BTW, seems both the TekNow SAM (paging push) and AlohaNet (2-way) were operational with email gateways pre “priority date” (thanks) but RIM failed to show this in court. Push-Pull? NTP is push by default – a paging system just broadcasts (pushes) the message regardless if the user’s pager is on or if in radio coverage, the system has no feedback way of knowing, there’s an unacceptable chance of not receiving the message. Push really is a 2-way radio concept. As you move in and out of radio coverage, the system knows this and pushes mail only when you get back into coverage, thus no messages are lost, improved reliability – see Mobitex. I don’t know if NTP claims a 2-way system. I’m not sure but if not, that may have been an initial USPTO scope of search problem. Interestingly, Mobitex was a wireless email system as of 1990 terms, with mailboxes, just like stand-alone (not interconnected) corporate LAN email systems at the time, however, it didn’t have (until RIM) a way to connect (gateway) to other email systems. Seems the technor system did. PDAgeek 03:45, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Good Technology licensed RIM patents related to mobile email technologyPDAgeek 01:32, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting. Do they have any marketshare?--Nowa 02:00, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

yes, don't know how much [6]PDAgeek 03:45, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

PDAgeek, Thanks for all your input. Good Thread.--Nowa 17:47, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

More accurate description of “fraudulent demo”. [7] I view Simon Avery as a tabloid journalist. His reporting is biased and questionable. Perhaps you can find a better reference for the RIM page [8]. I also see Glenayre as small irrelevant information compared to other patent issues such as Europe and should be removed. More stuff. [9] [10] [11] what do you think? PDAgeek 06:08, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting, however RIM has never claimed they invented wireless email.[12] PDAgeek 16:28, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Patent concepts" page

Hi Nowa. Cheers for the barnstar, much appreciated, it's good to know one is appreciated. Please take a look here at a suggestion, and offer your thoughts. Kcordina ^Talk 08:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] License tagging for Image:EPO pendancy.JPG

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[edit] Copyright problems with Image:EPO pendancy.JPG

The last page of the EPO Annual report from which you took the image indicates that the image is copyrighted by the European Patent Office. --Edcolins 20:44, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Ed, thanks. I've sent a note to the EPO asking for permission to post.--Nowa 20:51, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Good idea. Thanks. Let's wait and see. The annual report is indeed not a publication of the European Union. It is a publication of the European Patent Office which is not legally bound to the European Union, and which is likely to assert its copyright. IMHO there is no direct or implied right to use the material you copied, without prior authorization. --Edcolins 21:03, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Good point. I've also removed the picture from patent troll pending the determination. If they don't grant the right, I'll just make my own graph.--Nowa 21:04, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Approval rating

Well, I don't want to make them too big since that would crowd things a bit, but I can make them a little bit bigger on the next update. --tomf688^{talk} 23:05, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

tom, Thanks for your reply. What I've done is only show every other or every fifth number on the scale. See example

--Nowa 23:59, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Software patent

Yes, this is a rather controversial article. I would suggest first to improve the citations structure using for instance the "ref" element :

Example:

 According to scientists, the Sun is pretty big.<ref>Miller, E: "The Sun.", page 23. Academic Press, 2005</ref> 
The Moon, however, is not so big.<ref>Smith, R: "Size of the Moon", Scientific American, 46(78):46</ref> 

With at the end of the article:

 ==Notes== 

 <references/> 

Then it would be worth adding the tag {{citation needed}} after each speculative statement, so that we can easily identify what's dodgy. I think citing sources is one of the most important aspects for making a respectable article.

Do you think about making major change to the article's structure? --Edcolins 20:26, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think much of the overall structure. For starters, I think we could use a good definition of a software patent with perhaps one or two examples. I'd also like to show some statistics to illustrate the growth in software patents. We should also include some discussion as to why source code is not required in the US. I'd also like to see a section on Japan where, as I understand it, software is directly patentable.--Nowa 20:39, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for experimenting with the page Software patent debate on Wikipedia. Your test worked, and it has been reverted or removed. Please use the sandbox for any other tests you want to do. Take a look at the welcome page if you would like to learn more about contributing to our encyclopedia. A link to the edit I have reverted can be found here: link. If you believe this edit should not have been reverted, please contact me. TheRanger 03:14, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Nowa, thanks for the positive comments about the software patent article. Was that to soften the blow for changing "uncategorised" to "uncategorized" in the List of software patents article? Sorry, but as an Englishman, I shudder at such uses of the letter "z" :).

I'm also sorry to report that I'm going to stay out of the current edit war going on over there. I don't have strong views either way, but can see Josce's point.

As for other ways to improve the article, I started with putting in some definitions of the different terms, and was planning to echo those down into the Software_patent#Scope_of_software_patentability, since the article is currently wrong to suggest that A piece of code not relating to "the use of controllable forces of nature to achieve predictable results" and so forth. These are definitions of what would count as the dividing line between patentable and unpatentable software, not a definition of software itself. Unfortunately, I got distracted by other things: (wearing straw boater in bottom pic!) I'm also tempted to highlight that the term "software patent" is used largely as a pejorative term to describe patents that should not be granted, as opposed to CII which describes inventions that cover both sides of the divide between patentable and non-patentable, but would fear accusations of bias and have no real citation for that except every single patent related thread on Slahsdot!

Anways, lots of things to think about. I'll stop talking for now. I've put your talk page on my watchlist if you want to respond to any of my comments here rather than splitting the discussion over two pages. GDallimore 12:13, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

GDallimore - Thanks for your thoughtful response. Sorry about the Z. Feel free to change it back. I wasn't aware of the English spelling.

I agree Josce has a point. I'm just trying to encourage him to show proper etiquette.

More later on your other points.--Nowa 13:44, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

I know I said I wasn't going to get involved in the edit war, but I suddenly remembered reading about this patent/open source conflict on Axel Horns' blog, so had to mention it. GDallimore 00:49, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ebay v mercexchange

Hi, it would seem per eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C. that the MercExchange article is out of date, stating that eBay is still trying to appeal the decisions. I'm not familiar enough with the subject, so I'd rather have somebody else look at it. ... aa:talk 22:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] X-patents - begining with vs. ending with

The passage "re-issued with numbers beginning with "X" to distinguish" does not match the content of X-Patent, which is why I changed it back to 'ending with' after it was changed to 'beginning with' by User:38.139.36.119. However, is the content of X-Patent incorrect, considering information at (USPTO search result)? If yes, then that article needs to be fixed, correct? --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 18:44, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Ceyockey, Good points. The USPTO has the x in the beginning of the number in their database but the patents themselves generally have the x at the end of the number. The only exception I could find is patent x00001. I'll try to edit both articles to reflect this. --Nowa 21:55, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for resolving the confusion. Regards --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:08, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

I've left a retraction of the vandalism notification on User talk:38.139.36.119 so that my mistake shouldn't impact on the interpretation of that editor's future contributions. --User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 23:40, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Just want to say..

Happy new year! Nice to have great contributors like you down here! --Edcolins 20:59, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Ed, Likewise. Happy New Year. --Nowa 01:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ronald A. Katz

Thanks for your message on my talk page. My assessment is that the article should be kept. I suggest to add this reference forbes.com, Setting Patent Traps, Eric W. Pfeiffer, 06.24.02 and explain that he "is/was set to make $2 billion on 46 patents" which makes him clearly notable. How much did he make eventually? --Edcolins 22:00, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Ed, Thanks. I added the reference. No one really knows how much he has made. He's very secretive. Last I heard it was a billion.--Nowa 02:07, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Very secretive indeed. Googling him does not help much to know about his personal life. --Edcolins 20:19, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I found a picture of him here: [13]. I contacted them for permission to post on Wikipedia. Permission denied. I asked if I could have a contact at his company to see if I could get a publicity photo. They said they were not allowed to give out contact information to his company. Now that's someone who values his privacy.--Nowa 23:08, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Registration service

I've just created Registration service. Needs some improvement, but seems to be a common enough scam to be notable. What you think? GDallimore 11:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

GD, Nice job. See my comments at Talk:Registration service.--Nowa 11:44, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Patent troll

Thanks a lot for this edit [14]. It was not enough to change the title indeed... --Edcolins 13:50, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deleted patent templates

The new template {{Cite patent|..|.....}} replaces them all. Seems an improvement to me. I don't know however why the US patent template hasn't been replaced as well. --Edcolins 21:26, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Guys, you might want to take a look at ths discussion I've started on Template_talk:Harvard_reference#Expansion_of_template_-_HELP.21 to try to improve patent citing in Wikipedia.GDallimore 04:34, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Nowa, I have just left a message for you on my talk. --Mugander 2006-02-18 14:40 Western european time

[edit] Catastrophe bond

Thanks for your message on my talk page. Not much to mediate so far, it seems pure vandalism. Strange that the target is the same particular section. I have added a message on the talk page of the vandalizing users. The message comes from {{subst:test}}. Cheers. --Edcolins 19:33, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Muchas gracias--Nowa 00:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re: Auto insurance risk selection

To answer your specific question, a patent application is a primary source, and an encyclopedia article is different from a copy of a primary source. For example, if you were to look up United States Constitution in an encyclopedia, you would expect an article about the Constitution, not just the text of the document itself. More generally, you may want to take a look at WP:NOT for a list of many of the things that should not be included in Wikipedia. Also, Wikisource is a Wiki project that does accept primary source material. Dave6 ^talk 01:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Dave, Thanks for the further explanation and link to WP:NOT. I understand how Wikipedia is not a place for primary sources. The excerpted section for the article I posted is from the "Background" section of a patent application. Background sections are specifically written to be short encyclopedia-like articles about what is already known in the field of a particular invention, but not the invention itself.

What I'm trying to do here is a bit of an experiment. I'd like to see if background sections of patents might be good starting points for Wikipedia articles on fairly obscure areas of technology. Hopefully, others with an interest in the field will expand and elaborate. I expect, however, that the development of a given article may take weeks or even months given the obscure nature of the subject matter. Any thoughts on how to improve the process?--Nowa 11:54, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The patent application you've posted would make excellent source material for an article here. The main issue is that although the background section meant to be encyclopedia-like, it doesn't really match the structure of a Wikipedia article. If you take a look around at some articles here, you'll notice that they tend to have a similar layout. There is a good explanation of the structure of an article at Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles. In general, we want Wikipedia to have a consistent "look and feel". I have removed the prod tag and written an introductory section, which should be enough to stop another well meaning editor from nominating it for deletion again. I think the next steps to making this a better article are adding wikilinks and removing any text that's extraneous to an article on auto insurance risk selection. Dave6 ^talk 10:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Dave, Sounds good. Thanks for your guidance.--Nowa 12:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyright concern

Since you're a patent agent, you probably know more about this than me -- are patent applications considered public domain? I had assumed they were (as works of the US federal government) but now I'm not so sure. I see you mentioned "fair use" on the talk page. We can't copy large chunks of fair use text into Wikipedia articles (fair use images are ok here, but with limitations). We'll probably need to remove the text from the article if it isn't public domain or licensed under the GFDL. Dave6 ^talk 21:05, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Dave, You raise an excellent question that I really don't know the answer to. As a patent agent I deal only with patent law, not copyright. I know that wikipedia is fine with the posting of images from patents but I don't know specifically that the posting of text from patents is allowable. Since this is an experiment, why don't we see if someone with more expertise than either of us can comment. Is there a forum where we can post this inquiry?--Nowa 22:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for dropping this interesting question on my talk page. Well, on the European front, my guess would be that the text from patents are copyrighted. But that's really just a guess. Actually I don't know. Personally, I would not copied pasted anything from patents. I have posted the question here. Feel free to improve or expand the question. Cheers, --Edcolins 22:58, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Please see Copyright on the content of patents. --Edcolins 09:09, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Nicely done. I couldn't find anything, however, on PCT or EPO copyright issues.--Nowa 12:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] auto insurance risk selection

I tagged it with NPOV when it was just the patent application. It's in better shape now, so I removed the tag. Mountainhawk 01:04, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.--Nowa 03:35, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Catastrophe bond

I cannot block User:69.121.26.24 right now. See Wikipedia:Template messages/User talk namespace/Multi level details#Deletion for more information about the successive steps before a block. He has reached level 2. Catastrophe bond is now on my watchlist. Cheers. --Edcolins 19:38, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to let you know that I have just seen this edit [15]. Gosh, I cannot understand the harassment on the same section.. Do you any reason? It seems there is nothing personal in the section... --Edcolins 20:02, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea, except that some people just don't like patents.--Nowa 20:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe that's just that... Weird anyway. --Edcolins 20:20, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Conflict of interest

Be cautious in inviting newcomers to breach Wikipedia:Conflict of interest!... Not a big deal in this case though. Happy editing! Cheers, --Edcolins 22:48, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Point well taken.--Nowa 12:37, 10 March 2007 (UTC)