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Iron Man's Suit Isn't Patented, It's A Trade Secret

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Re: Iron Man's Suit Isn't Patented, It's A Trade Secret

#11
post #2

I found most interesting the bit about the states secrets privilege. Every time I encounter that I suspect that some bureaucrat somewhere is using it to cover his ass, and the government is likely in the wrong. Certainly my reading about the facts of the very first case where it was asserted, United States vs Reynolds, says that this was the motivation. See http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Publications/Legal_Issues/the…

Yet one of Judy's childhood friends sensed something. Susan White felt there was an "elephant in the closet" at Judy's house. She believed that the elephant was Judy's father. English must be so weird for non-native speakers.

You are getting used to it. The worst part is, that English's flexible grammar makes puns easy. And then the English look down on people who actually have to think of funny ideas to make a joke.

Re: Iron Man's Suit Isn't Patented, It's A Trade Secret

#12
post #9

"So, Tony Stark gets to choose: disclose the details of the invention in a patent and correspondingly get superior civil (i.e. monetary) relief if someone copies it, or try to keep the invention secret himself and hope that criminal law dissuades people from stealing it." This implies something that isn't true: that Tony Stark has to choose between the two strategies. In reality, he could choose to patent parts of th…

That's a valid point. I discussed the suit as a single invention; Stark could indeed patent parts of it while treating other parts as trade secrets.

The post has been updated to incorporate your comment.

Re: Iron Man's Suit Isn't Patented, It's A Trade Secret

#13
post #5

"In the film, Pepper Potts, played by Gwyneth Paltrow, demands action from "patent attorneys," but Stark Industries obviously hadn't patented the technology, or else the government would already have access to the information needed to reproduce the armor." When was the last time anyone here read a patent and thought "now I have all I need to implement"?

Legally, a patent should be clear enough that a competent practitioner can reproduce the technology.

Software patents are funny things.

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