BGP-based blackholing/hijacking patented in Australia?

Thu Aug 12 16:10:41 UTC 2004

On Thu, 12 Aug 2004, Andre Oppermann wrote:

> You have to be aware that the Australian Patent System is of declaratory
> nature only.  Anyone can claim anything in an patent application.  There
> is no check on the content done by the patent office.  Only the general
> formal outline of an patent application has to be fulfilled.
>

> Essentially any Australian Patent is worthless and the owner needs to
> establish its validity in court first before infringement stuff starts.

> We have basically the same situation in Switzerland. Pretty crappy. Although
> prior art occurs very fast. Anything known to the public (more than two 
> people
> outsite of your company) before the date of filing is considered prior art.
> Even patents in flight while you file your patent establish prior art. So
> patenting anything that can be found in any mailing list archive, posting
> or whatever with a date prior to your filing sinks your patent if you go to
> court. (Which is unlike the US system where you have up to twelve month from
> disclosing to filing your patent application).
>
> Conclusion: Just ignore any Australian Patent. It needs to be validated by
> a court first (which is highly unlikely considering the substantial prior
> art).

This sounds far saner than the approach used in US and over here. 
Patents are examined before they're granting, but still any old crap 
gets through, and once granted, AIUI, the patents have the 
presumption of validity and are very hard to knock down.

So at least under the Australian system you recognise that patents 
arent worth much if only the patent office has examined them, 
presumably they're not presumed valid on first litigation either? 
Hence making the crap-flood of patents less of a problem?

Ie, it sounds like au. and ch. are sane, compared to the insane 
system in some of rest of 1st world, rather than other way around as 
you claim.

PS: How do the pending trade treaties between US and AU affect 
things? Will AU get "presumed-valid and very hard to defeat" for the 
patent cruddage that are granted everywhere else?

regards,
-- 
Paul Jakma	paul at clubi.ie	paul at jakma.org	Key ID: 64A2FF6A
Fortune:
The reader this message encounters not failing to understand is cursed.