I didn't gather from the original post that the online service was biotech-related. But if it is, then you could be right about the public disclosure (unless t

I didn't gather from the original post that the online service was biotech-related. But if it is, then you could be right about the public disclosure (unless the service could be demonstrated as "experimental"). But I think it's more likely that we're talking about a software invention, in which case any non-disclosed implementation details could be a way to avoid potential infringement. If someone looking at the service can tell that it is nearly coincident with their own service... Plenty of inventions produce similar results yet have vastly different (and therefore individually patentable) implementations. In the case of an online service, there's little chance of the actual implementation being disclosed or somehow transferred to the end-user. My guess is that the inventive part of the service is executed server-side, and thus isn't accessible to the general public.