[Taxacom] Is it possible to create easy-to-use, accurate and rapid keys for species identifiation?

[Dean Pentcheff]

I am fascinated by this posting.

The claim appears to be that using geographic location to aid
identification in an interactive key (if used on a mobile station) is
now patented.

Does anyone know what the implications of this claim are? I don't know
enough about the EU intellectual property regime to even begin to
evaluate what this means.

If, in fact, EU patent regimes consider using an organism's range to
help identify a specimen as sufficiently non-obvious that the idea
deserves patent protection, I'm appalled.

-Dean
-- 
Dean Pentcheff
pentcheff at gmail.com

2009/8/31 Mauri Åhlberg <mauri.ahlberg at helsinki.fi>:
> I read with great interest Steve Marshall's and John Grehan's messages
> about difficulties of using keys, even interactive keys.
>
> NatureGate Online service for species identification is designed to be
> easy-to-use, accurate and rapid. It is based on patented system and
> method for object idenfification (Lehmuskallio, E. & Lehmuskallio, J.
> 2008, http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/en/wo.jsp?IA=FI2008000039 )
>
> NatureGate is looking for partners to expand this system to new
> organisn species and new regions: http://www.naturegate.net
>
> * IUCN: http://www.iucn.org/about/union/commissions/cec/?2614/
>  * The Finnish Institute of Environment (SYKE), and Ministry of Environment:
>       http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=298951&lan=EN
> * Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG):
>       http://www.tdwg.org/biodiv-projects/projects-database/view-project/1550/
>       http://www.tdwg.org/biodiv-networks/networks-database/view-project/56/
> •       Poster at the e-Biosphere 09 conference, June 1 – 3, 2009, London,
> UK. In the category: New Tools, Services and Standards for Data
> Management and Access, http://www.e-biosphere09.org/posters/D1.pdf
>
> Mauri Åhlberg (in English: Ahlberg) FLS
> Professor of Biology and Sustainability Education
> http://www.helsinki.fi/people/mauri.ahlberg
> http://www.naturegate.net
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> Taxacom Mailing List
> Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
> http://mailman.nhm.ku.edu/mailman/listinfo/taxacom
>
> The Taxacom archive going back to 1992 may be searched with either of these methods:
>
> (1) http://taxacom.markmail.org
>
> Or (2) a Google search specified as:  site:mailman.nhm.ku.edu/pipermail/taxacom  your search terms here