On: Bradley Kuhn: I Think I Just Got Patented

[eru]

Does the author live in the US? As far as I know e.g. European patent law does require not only prior art but also prior publication.

[gridspy → eru]

Who is going to publish something that they consider obvious?

[eru → gridspy]

An example: Page numbers are considered obvious nowadays, but they are still in a lot of published works.

[gridspy → eru]

Can you name a recent published work wherein the subject is page numbering?

[eru → gridspy]

Does this matter?

Any book will serve as published prior art against a patent on page numbering. It does not have to be the main subject.

[gridspy → eru]

My point is that there are many small problems which we solve as engineers every day that are too trivial to publish in a paper.

It is all well and good until some moron (genius?) comes along and patents these simple ideas.

[eru → gridspy]

Just push your source out in the open. Then you will have published every small idea that's in your code.

[eru → eru]

Publishing your stuff in an academic paper is not necessary for these purposes.