Jeff Pritchard wrote: ... > > My question would be...what can we come up with to replace the outdated > and nearly worthless "patent process" with some sort of a "runs at the > speed of technology" mechanism for giving credit where credit is due? > Without some new mechanism, we have only two directions to go... Any mechanism would need to consider that different people will have similar ideas independent of each other, and that very few ideas emerge out of a vacuum; even knowing when an idea is actually new, instead of a (simple) variation on existing practice(s), is hard to pin down. -- James Britt http://www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation http://www.artima.com/rubycs/ - The Journal By & For Rubyists http://www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff http://www.jamesbritt.com - Playing with Better Toys http://www.30secondrule.com - Building Better Tools