Re: 1st International Health Informatics Symposium

The patents I have obtained were granted as the result of patent
research and application--had no bearing on peers, other than sounding
boards for my private questions.

I agree that once unprotected IP is submitted to the public, it
becomes the public's domain, thereby no longer patentable.

Therefore, review of one's scientific method is a private matter--not
a matter whereby submission to the public is supposedly "protected"
under the false premise of an access that is closed by those who claim
to be "peers", and offer no guarantee of receipt. Arguably, the very
submission of such IP renders it not patentable anyhow.

As the result, the problem remains: Once an individual performs work
that is independent of corporations (either patentable, or not), it
cannot be easily funded; corporations are the sole funding mechanisms.

However, novelty thrust into the public's domain is quickly
plagiarized unless it is patented; nevertheless, patents without prior
establishment of means soon become the public's domain, since they
expire unless renewed at a cost. Therefore, only corporations of means
end up with all the patentsindividuals no longer have access to a
possible chance of garage-based inventions that have been monopolized
through the politics of corporatism.

Further complicating advancement is the fact that once one is "hired"
by a corporation, and given a job description, that individual must
adhere to the job description. This arrangement effectively divides
those who are experienced with the problems within a system from
solving those exact problems.

Therefore, the politics of corporatism has sclerosed the very process
of scientific solutions. The corporate medium for submission of work
that is Easy Chair's closed access is evidence of this sclerosis.

Greg
On Apr 2, 2010, at 9:45 AM, Eben Haber wrote:

> As far as I know, when submitting work to a closed system like
> EasyChair or PrecisionConference, the closed nature of the system
> means that your submission is *not* a public disclosure, and your
> work is therefore not publically disclosed until it is accepted for
> publication and published.  This can be an advantage, since the
> clock for obtaining a patent does not start until the actual
> publication.
>
> As to the value of peer review, while I agree with your statement
> that, "usability science finds facts regarding the actions of end-
> users", somebody must evaluate whether your experiment/study of end-
> users was well designed, and whether the conclusions you draw are
> justified, and whether the questions you ask are interesting.
> Having run a conference, I find that peer review does a reasonable
> job of determining that.
>
> Of course there is a huge area worth discussing about conferences in
> general, which operate on a model of scarcity and selectivity,
> drawing an arbitrary line between acceptable and unacceptable papers
> due to the needs of academics to publish at sufficiently selective
> conferences.  Surely we can find a better way to attribute credit to
> valuable work.
>
> Regards,
>
> -Eben Haber
>
>
> On Apr 2, 2010, at 8:41 AM, Greg Austin wrote:
>
>> Hi Manas,
>>
>> Maybe you can enlighten me--just exactly which utility does "Peer
>> Review" serve in the field of usability science? Why would anyone
>> employ Easy Chair's closed access, as opposed to anything else that
>> is
>> open to public review? Why would anyone do that?
>>
>> If you are one who patents, trademarks, or copyrights your work,
>> those
>> works are protected equally in a blog as well at a symposium.
>>
>> I understand the utility of peer review if we are learning from or
>> teaching our peers; however, under no circumstances is science itself
>> constrained by the opinions of peers--only the topics for which
>> scientists seek are influenced. The facts themselves remain.
>>
>> Moreover, usability science finds facts regarding the actions of end-
>> users--not the opinions of peers. The only possible outcome of
>> isolating one's presentation to peers is the risk that continuation
>> of
>> the work is biased by peer pressure.
>>
>> I can see no advantages to submitting work in usability science
>> through Easy Chair, a closed access, one that is maintained by those
>> claiming to be our "peers". Therefore, it seems to me that the
>> symposium's mission can be more efficiently directed in a blog.
>>
>> Greg
>> On Mar 31, 2010, at 10:52 AM, Manas Tungare wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Greg,
>>>
>>> Looking at the web site for this Symposium,
>>> (http://ihi2010.sighi.org/) it appears to me a regular ACM-sponsored
>>> conference, like so many others. Easy Chair is quite commonly used
>>> by
>>> many scientific communities that do not want to, or need to,
>>> invest in
>>> a custom solution for soliciting and reviewing papers. The corporate
>>> sponsorship you speak of usually involves monetary support from
>>> companies to pay for the expenses incurred during the conference
>>> itself. The sponsorship by PNNL is quite likely with similar
>>> arrangements. I have never seen any instance of automatic assignment
>>> of copyright or patents to these Corporations and Governments you
>>> despise. ("Intellectual Property", to me, is a misleading umbrella
>>> term that attempts to group together copyright, trademark and patent
>>> law under one roof.)
>>>
>>> The only remaining question is about Open Access to publications and
>>> philosophical opinions regarding closed publication. Many of us
>>> support open publication by retaining copyright and making our works
>>> available under liberal licenses, e.g. Creative Commons. Sadly,
>>> that's
>>> not the case with all conferences yet, though we hope that will soon
>>> change.
>>>
>>> But even under the current circumstances, you are never denied
>>> authorship or credit for your own work by the community or by ACM.
>>> On
>>> the other hand, submitting to conferences such as this allows peer
>>> review and helps disseminate knowledge quicker and with reasonable
>>> credibility as compared to posting on a self-hosted blog. ACM also
>>> allows authors to post a copy of the paper on their own web site for
>>> download (although they still like to retain copyright,
>>> unfortunately).
>>>
>>>
>>> P.S. I have no affiliation with this conference or with any of the
>>> PC
>>> members; I just saw your email about it and decided to check out
>>> what
>>> the issue was.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Manas.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Manas Tungare, Ph.D.
>>> http://manas.tungare.name/
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Mar 31, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Greg Austin
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Group:
>>>>
>>>> A word of caution to those who may be casting their pearls before
>>>> swine: The sponsors of the 1st International Health Informatics
>>>> Symposium have not presented any guidelines to protect, or even
>>>> acknowledge, your work. Please be forewarned: Your work is yours.
>>>> You
>>>> own the fruits of your own labor (as well as your own liabilities),
>>>> and you do not need to prove that ownership to entities who may
>>>> have a
>>>> vested interest in stealing, undermining, or preventing that
>>>> ownership.
>>>>
>>>> If you want to selflessly present your IP and the fruits of your
>>>> labor
>>>> to a candid world, for the betterment of science, I would suggest
>>>> publishing your information online--away from the sole control of
>>>> corporations that maintain every incentive to steal your work and
>>>> claim that "they had already been working on such an idea".
>>>>
>>>> I you want the entire world to bear witness to your healthcare IP
>>>> for
>>>> the betterment of mankind, I suggest opening up a discussion blog
>>>> that
>>>> can be accessed by the public--without Corporate Government
>>>> censorship.
>>>>
>>>> I'll be the first to post.
>>>>
>>>> Any good free blogs you can recommend?
>>>>
>>>> Greg
>>>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 1:39 PM, Greg Austin wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Umit:
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you for your prompt reply.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am willing to submit this information for the purpose of
>>>>> academics, and am even willing to teach and guide those who are
>>>>> interested in the process I have discovered through its suggested
>>>>> steps. However, I am neither a Principle Investigator, nor have I
>>>>> been paid directly as an entitled instructor; instead, I am an
>>>>> entrepreneur, an experienced clinician, usability analyst, and an
>>>>> ECMA script interface designer. Therefore, I would get no
>>>>> marketable
>>>>> rewards for describing my Intellectual Property, since I am not
>>>>> paid
>>>>> to educate others while continuing my research.
>>>>>
>>>>> Nevertheless, information must be exchanged.
>>>>>
>>>>> Further, I maintain that true science itself does not care about
>>>>> my
>>>>> credentials, or lack of them. I am confident that I can lead
>>>>> others
>>>>> through the scientific steps necessary to create a world-class
>>>>> user-
>>>>> centered healthcare informatics project. However, I again need to
>>>>> know--what's in this for me?
>>>>>
>>>>> Thank you for your time.
>>>>>
>>>>> Greg
>>>>>
>>>>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 11:44 AM, Umit V. Catalyurek wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Dear Greg Austin -- thanks for your interest to our conference. I
>>>>>> don't think I'm in the position to give you legal advise but IMHO
>>>>>> (baring in mind that I'm an academician whose first priority is
>>>>>> publish and never filed a patent in my life :), if you have IP
>>>>>> concerns, I think right approach is to file a patent before
>>>>>> disclosing it (including submitting for a peer review for any
>>>>>> conference/journal). FYI I'm cc'ying PC Co-Chairs and Honorary
>>>>>> Chair.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>> Umit
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mar 18, 2010, at 12:56 PM, Greg Austin wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Umit Catalyurek:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thank you for providing the opportunity to submit information
>>>>>>> regarding healthcare informatics development  to the 1st
>>>>>>> International Health Informatics Symposium.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> As a BayCHI member, an independent researcher and inventor, I am
>>>>>>> interested in submitting a paper and prototypic example of the
>>>>>>> careMerge user-centered healthcare informatics guidelines.
>>>>>>> Revealing these guidelines may generally benefit the field of
>>>>>>> healthcare, since I have already discovered many great facts
>>>>>>> regarding user-centered design of healthcare informatics as the
>>>>>>> science is applied to the actual practice of healthcare.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> However, I must question my own motivation to reveal this
>>>>>>> intellectual property. I must be certain that if I reveal the
>>>>>>> method and rationale behind the careMerge method of user-
>>>>>>> centered
>>>>>>> design that this will indeed benefit humankind, and will not
>>>>>>> merely be hoarded to the benefit of very few individuals through
>>>>>>> their pre-established corporations designed to own the work of
>>>>>>> others.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> This concern is not unfounded, since the fact that papers
>>>>>>> submitted by willing participants that are intended to be
>>>>>>> revealed
>>>>>>> to the public are to be received through the EasyChair secure
>>>>>>> website; the fact that a secure website is being employed to
>>>>>>> receive these papers indicates a level of control over IP not
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> of the participants ourselves. If we participants submit papers
>>>>>>> revealing our IP to an opaque secure website that is scrutinized
>>>>>>> by corporations with everything to gain by claiming these
>>>>>>> properties as their own, how can we be assured that this
>>>>>>> information submitted will be properly screened, credited to
>>>>>>> those
>>>>>>> who have done the work, and employed for the betterment of
>>>>>>> humanity?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Again, thank you for the opportunity, and your anticipated
>>>>>>> response to my concerns over submitting IP to the symposium.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Greg Austin
>>>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Greg Austin
>>>>> [email protected]
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Greg Austin
>>>> [email protected]
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>
>> Greg Austin
>> [email protected]
>> _______________________________________________
>> This is the BayCHI Discussions mailing list, [email protected]
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>

Greg Austin
[email protected]
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