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***** To join INSNA, visit http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/ ***** Guy Hagen, Keith Hampton, Steven Corman, Chris McCarty, Martina Morris, Valdis Krebs, Stan Wasserman all wrote today about the patents being taken out or applied for dealing with network analysis applications, packages, etc. More than one person argued that INSNA ought to send a letter to the US Patent Office offering expertise regarding network science issues relevant to these patents. The concern that one or more of these patents may prevent us from doing some of the network research we have been doing for several decades, using techniques we have developed. Would any of you like to form a working group to investigate this situation in more depth, to recommend what course of action is appropriate, and, should INSNA accept those recommendations, to assist in their implementation? I'd like to go one step at a time. First, determine whether action needs to be taken; second, depending on the result of the first step, recommend what action should be taken. Comments? Suggestions? Any INSNA Legal Eagles out there? Bill _____________________________________________________________________ SOCNET is a service of INSNA, the professional association for social network researchers (http://www.sfu.ca/~insna/). To unsubscribe, send an email message to [log in to unmask] containing the line UNSUBSCRIBE SOCNET in the body of the message.