Monday, April 19, 2004

THE EPO IS ALLOWING DISCLAIMERS IN CLAIMS (NEGATIVE CLAIMING) I attach the Enlarged Board of Appeal Decisions G1/03 and G2/03 on the allowability of disclaimers.  They have been posted today on the EPO website, at http://legal.european-patent-office.org/dg3/updates/2004_04_19.htm 8:14:41 PM    comment []

East Fork Fires Click here to view full image (2541 kb) By April 18, 2004, the East Fork Fire in the Apalachicola National Forest in western Florida was about 90 percent contained. Reports from the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service’s Southern Area Coordination Center lists the cause of the fire as arson. The fire broke out on April 4, 2004, and by April 11, it had affected 14,600 acres. By April 18, the SACC reported the size as 26,279 acres. (The MODIS instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this image of the fire on April 10.) Much of the region burned in the fire was in a part of the forest called the Bradwell Bay Wilderness. Because of the wilderness designation, firefighters are guided by a special set of rules called Minimum Impact Suppression Techniques (MIST). According to the Forest Service's Website on the fire, MIST includes “things like using wet lines or foam instead of digging a firebreak in the soil, cutting stumps close to the ground so they won't be seen, camouflaging stumps and fresh cuts with soil or branches to make them look aged, pulling downed branches and leaves over old trails to obscure tracks of firefighters, [and] if equipment is used, making sure it does not rut or compact the soil.” This image from April 16 shows the large 8:07:52 PM    comment []