Some comments on process

a) We are dealing with an "invention" where 
   1) Fox was the principal investigator of all activities
   2) Fox is considered to have made the largest contribution
   3) Fox is the only internationally recognized scientist 
      in this field involved in process
b) There has been a technology disclosure to SU of some 2.5 years ago
   (My copy was copied to my PC Sept 19 97) with inventors
	Geoffrey Fox: 50% , Tomasz Major: 18%, Gang Cheng: 12%, 
	Lukasz Beca: 5%, Piotr Sokolowski: 5%, Yuping Zhu: 5%, 
	Kivanc Dincer: 5% (Fractions determined by Podgorny)
c) The original work was extended in two main areas
   1) Work of Walczak, Podgorny and Fox in converting Fox's program wwwfoil.pl
      into Java XML and Oracle (modern technology). Walczak and Podgorny
      made some useful extensions
   2) Fox's ideas of shared DHTML described in some memos and experimental software
      This extended Fox's original JavaScript shared browser used in first
      distance education classes in Fall 97. The new software has not been used
      in any "real" applications yet. The utility of this work is seriously impacted by
      delays (for ever maybe) in good Netscape 5 browser from mozilla.org
d) Luk Beca did some interesting work on using XML to specify collaboration
   Technically interesting but not clearly innovative/reduced to practice enough
   to be patentable (use of XML is today commonplace for everything)
e) Fox has suggested in recent presentations and proposals some new ideas
   for building collaborative portals. These are still ideas and not reduced
   to practice. 
f) Most relevant scholarly papers are
Bernholdt D.E., Fox G.C., Malluhi Q., Markowski R., McCracken N., Mitra D., Podgorny M., Scavo
T.,"Synchronous Learning at a Distance: Experiences with Tango", Proceeedings of SC98 Orlando, IEEE.
http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/training/Papers/sc98/
plus some reviews by Fox at SC97 and in 1999 for book dedicated to
John Rice at Purdue. There are also presentations and memos from subsets
of the above authors.

Conventionally authorship of papers acknowledges contribution to a project. Here
in particular work of Markowski McCracken and Bernholdt was essential in
defining critical capabilities -- which work was basis of aspects of design documents
used in patent application.
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Process of patent preparation

A) Original patent draft from Dichiara was flawed as it did not describe educational
model well and had (in Fox's opinion) too much focus on trivial details
of database table design
B) Fox prepared documents in and about March 99 for use in planning NSF proposals
which were given to Dichiara who prepared a revised document which essentially
defined system used in paper (f) above (plus the WebWisdomDB upgrade which is a technical
but not functional improvement)
C) In August 1999, 10000 lines of code written by Fox were given to Dichiara for incorporation
into patent. These are the the (still unused) JavaScript shared browser whose
software was first completed in August 1999.
D) Fox understands that patent was filed in August 99. He cannot find any record
of a discussion of appropriateness of this and who should be inventors (before filing)
E) After August 1999, there has been much debate about 1) claims and 2) inventors
   Ones view of this depend on if inventors are meant to match current claims
   (which Fox understands Podgorny consider's of little value) or claims which
   could be added (which Fox and Podgorny believe to be potentially more valuable)
   Note that in any case this patent is a "kitchen sink" which makes value
   of patent and assignment of inventors problematical. Fox suggests that one MUST include
   the correct inventors of claims in current application. 
F) One could have thought that being PI, lead inventor and best known
   scientist in field could qualify Fox to have relevant insight as to who
   made significant contributions. Based on following actions, Dichiara does
   not appear to agree with this. Apart from this mechanism, the only other
   natural sources of inventor names appear to be technology disclosure and published
   papers. Dichiara also does not appear to follow this either.

G) Email of October 4 99 from Marek Podgorny to Dichiara states:
"The technology described in the current pattent was in very large part invented and
implemented by Geoffrey, so i have to rely on his judgemnt as to who should be
listed as inventor. He is, as uually, on the road most time, but i hope that i will
find time to discsuss this with him on saturday this week. you should have your
answers by next monday.

best regards - marek"


H) Email from Fox October 10 99 suggested (without fractions) that appropriate inventors
Fox Podgorny Walczak McCracken Markowski Bernholdt. This is consistent with
scholarly paper strategy for determining contributors

I) Email from Podgorny 21 October 1999 countered with inventors and fractions
Goeffrey Fox - 50%, Luk Beca - 20%, Marek Podgorny - 10%, Chris Walczak - 10%, Tom Major - 10%
Fox has no objections to Beca and Major as inventors

J) On receiving document to sign in mid January, Fox informed Syracuse,
   Strickland and Dichiara that it seemed unwise to sign as he had documented
   his own disagreement with list of inventors and asked what to do about this.
   Dichiara did not respond to this email. In signing document one must
   testify to truthfulness of it.
   
K) On February 17, Fox was informed on travel that he was threatened by Dichiara with fiscal
   punishment if he did not sign document. He immediately countered that he was
   happy to sign any document that he considered truthful and suggested language
   to do this. He understands that this was not acceptable to Dichiara.
 
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