[Liverpool] Software patent data

[tony burrows]

Aidan McGuire wrote:
> if its useful i will offer to do the web site.
>
> Aidan
>
> On 2 Apr 2006, at 11:27, Julian Todd wrote:
>
>> tony burrows wrote:
>>> After the last meeting I started playing with the idea of getting 
>>> data from the patent office.  Gave me an excuse to learn Python as 
>>> well.
>>>
>>> Now currently a can take a downloaded page and grab the relevant 
>>> data into an xml file.  I know how to use python to stuff it into 
>>> MySQL, but I have hit a couple of problems.
>>>
>>> First, I'm not sure how to navigate around pages automatically so 
>>> that I can grab stuff without having to do it all manually through a 
>>> browser.
>>
>> All you need is urllib.urlopen(), read(), urlparse.urljoin() and some 
>> regexp knowledge to get whatever you want from the internet, spider 
>> around it, and capture the data.
>>
>>    http://docs.python.org/lib/module-urllib.html
>>
>>
>> That's how I've done it for the whole of publicwhip.  Arrange a date 
>> from me if you want to know how to get started.  The technical term 
>> for what you are trying to do is making the data accessible.  So, 
>> downloading all the data, adding a proper search engine, and 
>> reposting it in a useable form is not violating the copyright, it's 
>> making it accessible for people who can't handle their interface.  Or 
>> so goes the argument.  It hasn't been tested in court, but the moral 
>> defense is: if the patent office is willing to take on these improved 
>> capabilities which people need, then you will take your website 
>> down.  It should be as legal as caching the webpages for quicker access.
>>
>> Julian T.
>>
>>
>>
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>
Thanks everyone.  It's given me something to work on, but it might take 
a while since there's the day job as well.

Tony