Open Invention Network Publication Education Material:

1.     How are Innovations and Inventions usually protected?

•       Patents

•       Right granted by the Government to exclude others from making, using or selling products and services for a period of time.

•       Trade Secrets

•       Company secrets safeguarded from disclosure to the public by appropriate company policies and procedures.

•       Enabled publications

•       Placement of innovative concepts into the public domain to protect and enhance the value of IP Portfolios and a low cost way to protect Open Source technologies.

•       Copyrights

•       Very commonly used for software inventions. Provide more specific protection of code, for more details, visit copyright.gov

•       Nothing

•       But the risk is that someone else could patent

2.     Enabled publications are a low cost and proactive way to protect inventions from being patented

•       An open source enabling publication is a written disclosure describing the invention is a specific way that, when placed into the public domain in an appropriate manner, can be used as prior art for:

•       Preventing patents described in the earlier enabling publication(s) from issuing

•       These enabled publications must be written to technically describe the operation of the invention

•       In order to put these publications into the public domain they need to be put in a searchable system that patent examiners can access

3.     Enabled publications are not new

•       Enabling publications have been a component of IP strategies for over 40 years.

•       Some companies have used enabling publications as a means to broaden their IP protection at a lower cost than filing patents on everything by patenting core inventions and publishing around to eliminate others from patenting on top of them

•       IBM's technical disclosure bulletin (TDB) is the most well-known example of this strategy

•       Innovative concepts related to open source can really be open by using the patent system prior art regulations, and by documenting and making known to patent examiners the existing enabling publications.

•      

4.     Enabled publications can knock out future patents

•       Enabled publications can give the examiner prior art

•       To stop identical (new inventions)

•       Provide enough prior art to make a potential patent obvious

5.     Enabled Publication Prior Art Requirement

•       For an enabled publication to be considered as “prior art” for stopping a patent, the following elements must be satisfied for an enabled publication

•       Must be documented

•       Must have a non-changeable date

•       Must be enabled (enough description so another can make the invention work

•       Must be available to the patent examiners

•       Must be available to a person of ordinary skill in the art

6.     To be deemed enabled, a publication must:

•       Describe the invention in sufficient detail to allow one with ordinary skill in the art to make or use the invention, without excessive experimentation (usually considered several months by an ordinary skill)

•       Not rely on subsequent inventions or discoveries

7.     Why is OIN pursuing the use of enabled publications?

•       OIN sees the use of enabled publications as a way to protect the future of Linux from patent litigation by decreasing the number of Linux-related patents that will issue in the future

•       OIN seeks to use enabled publications as an elegant solution that:

•       Taps into the innovative spirit of the open source/Linux communities

•       Supports OIN's mission without entering into the patentability of software debate

•       Aligns with the open source community's sentiment that software inventions should not be patented

•       How will these publications be used?

•       OIN expects that the publications will be effective in preventing patents related to Linux from issuing

•       Protect freedom to practice for new Linux innovations

•       Protect future applications of Linux devices by adopting future technology in some publications

8.     Who is developing the inventions that will be described in the publications?

•       You. OIN is asking for your help in supporting the future of Linux by writing up your inventions and preventing anyone from obtaining a patent on your invention

•       OIN expects to find contributors everywhere from garages and basements in California, from corporate offices in North Carolina, and from Internet cafés around the world

9.     How will OIN collect and publish these publications?

•       Through this website. By following this link, you can register as a contributor and start protecting the future of Linux by documenting and submitting your inventions as enabled publications

10.  Where will the inventions be published?

•       OpenInventionNetwork uses a well known system for publishing innovative concepts called ip.com (www.ip.com)

•       ip.com’s Prior Art Database was created to provide a fast, effective, and centralized outlet for publishing and searching technical disclosures. 

•       Most importantly, this database is searched and cited daily by patent examiners worldwide

•       ip.com digitally fingerprints and date-stamps your work while placing it into the public domain

11.  What are the steps for writing an enabled publication?

•       Focus on one invention at a time

•       Develop invention

•       Invention involves solving problems in new ways – software developers do this frequently

•       Capture the differences between how your new invention addresses a problem versus

•       How the problem was solved in the past?

•       Other alternative (inferior for some reason – slower, more expensive, lower quality) ways to solve the problem

12.  What is included in the specification for OIN technical publications?

•       Contact information:

•       Name, email address, phone #, mailing address, citizenship

•       Title:

•       Less than 20 words

•       Formalized and descriptive title broadly describing the invention

•       Example - Efficient Gathering of Computer Audit Data Before and During Attack

•       Anyone familiar with the industry of the relevant invention should be able to figure out the gist of the invention from the title

•       Look at the nature of the primary objects of the invention for clues as to how to write the title

•       Method, apparatus, or both?

•       Common ways to begin titles are:

•       Method of…

•       System for…

•       System and method of…

•       Description (typically 1-3 paragraphs)

•       Discuss the shortcomings of the prior art

•       Example - In case of a successful intrusion on a computer system, the attacker can in most cases change audit/log traces, thereby making an analysis of the intrusion very hard resp. destroying the evidence and consequences and repercussions of an intrusion.

•       Summarize the technical problems solved by the invention

•       Example - Usually in security conscious organizations a compromise is taken: a manageable size of log data (restricted in detail and number of machines) is taken to a central server (to avoid tampering of an attacker) and stored for a time, which allows for discovery of an intrusion (attempt) and analysis of the logs, before removal of the log data. Alternatively, cryptographic methods are used to make available logs tamper resistant and destroying of log data at least detectable. This compromise is unsatisfactory from an intrusion detection standpoint for security & forensic analysis, therefore an additional solution is proposed here.

•       Problem/Opportunity:

•       This section is an introduction to the invention and should include mention of the business areas, market spaces, and technical problems being solved. If the inventor is aware of any related patents or patent applications, the inventor may briefly describe the differences between his/her invention and the other filings.

•       Detailed Description:

•       Describing how the invention solves the problems introduced while describing and referring to a figure and its numbered elements or method steps

•       Example

•       In normal operation, the monitored computing systems (1) keep extensive audit logs locally (2) or remotely by sending log data to a central logging server (3), but to keep log files manageable, data is only kept for a very limited time, say x minutes (where x is in the order of about 10 minutes, which should correspond to the worst case reaction time of the deployed intrusion detection system (4)). If an attack against the monitored computing system (1) is detected by some intrusion detection sensor (4), the extensive audit trail from x minutes before the attack is immediately fetched via a secure connection either from the monitored computing system itself in case of local logging (5), or from the central log server in case of remote logging (6).

•       Additionally (and optionally) the intrusion detection sensor (4) can change the logging behavior on the attacked, and now suspicious, computing system (7), e.g. to switch to 2 an even more detailed level of logging, or remote instead of local logging. A possible embodiment could be done with open-source tools: 􀁺 Secure Auditing for Linux [2] can be used as source of a detailed audit trail, in their architecture using a central remote collection point for the logs 􀁺 Snort [4] can be used as intrusion detection sensor (4). Snort can be customized to react with arbitrary scripts to intrusion alarms (by extension of the 'react' method of the 'flexibly response' module). 􀁺 ssh [5] can provide a secure channel to gather the log data in (5)/(6).

•       Figure: (optional)

•       Prefer at least one figure:

•       Methods should include flow chart of high level steps

•       Systems should include diagram with at least basic elements of computing device (client or server with processor, memory, OS, software, etc), network,

•       Well labeled elements, where each label is described in the description and where the operation of the interconnection of each of the labeled elements is described

13.  What invention types will be common in the Linux-related publications?

•       Systems

•       A collection of data (fields, protocols, data structure), software (GUI, code, algorithms, business rules, and hardware (computer, sensors, mouse, RAM, etc.) that act together

•       User Interface

•       Apparatus

•       A machine

•       Methods (or Process

•       A collection of steps as a:

•       Method of making something

•       Method of using a system of apparatus or user interface

•       Business methods, or

•       Methods of operating a system or apparatus

14.  What else do I need to know?

•       Publications should be cleared through your employer(s) before submission

•       Many employers have clauses in employment agreements about the ownership of intellectual property developed while an employee. Please review and honor your agreements.

•       Publications should not contain confidential information