Sunday, July 6, 2008

Ideology of patents

as if jumping into the thick of an ongoing lecture on patent writing, here is a brief rewind to the basic concept of a patent. The patent is:
  • A government sponsored right to a monopoly – to reward the inventor for time and effort spent.
  • an advantage of First to Market
  • A right to exclude people from practicing an invention– not a right to practice it.
  • an instrument entitled to license rights for use thereof.
  • Covered for 20 years from the date of filing an original application.
Patentable subject matter
The presence or absence of human control is at the core of every patentable subject matter question. First, it is crucial to determine what an inventor claims to have invented or discovered, there is always this element of human control. The Prior Art section: to show a patent is fatally flawed
  • Something that shows that a patent is NOT NEW or is OBVIOUS – not eligible for protection.
  • Prior art includes: any publication, in any language, located anywhere in the world, thesis, dissertation, article, textbook, patent, assignment, white paper, written materials handed out during a presentation, product, product brochure – they all must be publicly available (as a product, or printed).
  • Prior art includes recollections of what someone (or oneself) said, of a trade secret, or a confidential memo.
  • Prior art is also patent databases, other language databases, documents, publications –published before the filing data of the patent.
  • Prior art section most often compares a relevant publication to CLAIMS of a patent.