!022794 More problems for Compton's multimedia patent A tidbit from an article in New Scientist about Compton's multimedia patent [New Scientist 1/29/94, 20]. "Compton also filed a string of foreign patents, including an application under the international patent treaty (WO 91/06916), which covers more than 40 countries (including the following countries, provided to me by the people at Derwent - AT, AU, BE, BB, BG, BR, CA, CH, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HU, IT, JP, KP, KR, LK, LU, MC, MG, MW, NL, RO, SD, SE, SU, US, OA). This lays claims to more than 90 different aspects of multimedia. The main claim is to a blanket monopoly on a search system with text and graphical paths. There is no world register which shows the progress of a PCT application in all its countries. But an unofficial register compiled by the Science Reference and Information Service of the British Library shows no progress on Compton's European or British filings, even though they were filed in 1990. Usually, where cases are progressing smoothly, this register shows action after nine months. Patent searchers believe that Compton's may be finding it difficult to convince patent examiners in Europe that the idea of searching for text and graphics was novel in 1989 and a patentable invention." ------------- When the Compton's announcement first caused a furor, few realized that for a 1989 patent, there must be some public international proceedings for Compton's foreign filings, in which the lack of progress could have been noticed. As an aside, this is a good illustration of why the patenting community needs to better educate new inventors and the public on foreign patenting procedures such as the PCT. ------------- From an article in Advanced Imaging, February 1994, page 78, some more limitations on Compton's patent, even if allowed: "For example, one of the arguments presented by the inventors (in the file wrapper, not the patent) was that while text searching capabilities existed and retrieval of graphical information as a result of a text search was known, retrieving text as a result of a graphical search was not in the prior art. Roughly translated this means that 'databases that have both graphical information and text information are not necessarily endangered by this patent'. Further, if graphical data is retrieved separate from the text information even though both forms are in the database, again this multimedia application would not be encompassed by the claims in the patent." If I am not mistaken, Apple's Hypercard allowed graphical searching for text (by clicking on icons), and predated Compton's patent application, so that even this argument by Compton is somewhat shaky. ------------- Greg Aharonian Internet Patent News Service