To recap: In August 1993 the Patent Office awarded Compton's, a San Diego-based CD-ROM publisher, exclusive rights on a basic search and retrieval software feature in its interactive CD-ROM products. This would have allowed Compton's to demand licensing or royalty fees from virtually any company in the CD-ROM industry. However, last October the Compton's patent was invalidated. After a more careful examination, the Patent Office found dozens of documents indicating the "invention" was neither new nor unique. It is indeed ironic that this obvious failure in searching "prior art" involved a retrieval software patent application.
The sense of deja vu arises from my own experience with the Patent Office and its efforts at computerization more than 35 years ago. In 1957, the office was swamped by a flood of patent applications on steroids, then a very active field of research and commercialization. In order to alleviate the huge backlog, the ...
