61–70 of 80 posts
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SpaceX is in a very distinct position that its products are launched into space, making it very hard for a third-party to dissect and reproduce them.
Industrial espionage is still very powerful, and recovery of boosters is also possible.
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Disclaimer: I am a former software engineer turned patent attorney. However, I am not your lawyer, nor am I the lawyer of anyone who reads this. (Sorry, I have to say that) Anyway, another thing that many people miss on the "first to file" issue is that it's the first INVENTOR to file. So, employee can't leave company, steal the invention, then file if employee was not the inventor. The law really is only changing in…
What happens when the patents are invented in isolation? Is one considered "derived from" the other, despite no information passing between them?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I am a former software engineer turned patent attorney. However, I am not your lawyer, nor am I the lawyer of anyone who reads this. (Sorry, I have to say that) Anyway, another thing that many people miss on the "first to file" issue is that it's the first INVENTOR to file. So, employee can't leave company, steal the invention, then file if employee was not the inventor. The law really is only changing in…
Interesting career choice. Do you specialise in software patents?
Although I do write software patents for some clients, my practice is more broad than that. I deal with patent, trademark, and copyright (intellectual property) issues, as well as contracts regarding software, books, art, and ip issues. I also handle litigation about all of those issues.
Even if this were a better approach, all I see it doing is forcing an even bigger torrent of patents into a system already so overloaded that it hardly functions as it is. How is the patent office going to manage the increase? It's not, the system is going to slow down even further. This also increases the cost of innovation. If I have a business, invent something, and don't patent it - I'm screwed regardless of if I…
Even if this were a better approach, all I see it doing is forcing an even bigger torrent of patents into a system already so overloaded that it hardly functions as it is. How is the patent office going to manage the increase? It's not, the system is going to slow down even further. This also increases the cost of innovation. If I have a business, invent something, and don't patent it - I'm screwed regardless of if I…
What the AIA does is two-fold:
1) It changes the rule from "first to invent" to "first to file" when two inventors simultaneously seek a patent for the same invention;
2) It expands the "prior user rights" defense so that if you've been using a technology commercially for a year before the patent filing, you're not liable for infringement.
So if you weren't going to patent something, and keeping it as a trade secret instead, it's not clear that under AIA you have a new incentive to go patent it. If you weren't going to patent it anyway, there wasn't going to be a "dueling applications" situation, and "first to file" wasn't going to come into play anyway. And if you disclosed the technology instead of keeping it secret, then prior art comes into play and AIA expands the cases in which prior art can be used to invalidate a patent.
I'd personally like to see a merging of the "prior user rights" and "prior art" defenses. It should be possible to invalidate a patent by showing that someone else was using the technology before the patent was filed, even if that other person didn't publish.
Of course, one way to achieve that effect under current rules is to publish instead of keeping technology secret. If the tech community is really opposed to patents, especially software patents, then it should take additional measures to publish exactly how all their technologies work. This is something Google, etc, can take the lead on without waiting for legislation. Establish a rich database of prior art that can be used to invalidate future patents.
If an invention is invented twice independently, it should by definition be "obvious" and not patentable.
FWIW, I agree with the principle. There's a lot of obvious stuff that gets patented, particularly in software.
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(Sorry, I have to say that) If you think that you have a poor understanding of the law.
No. We are afraid that someone will read what we say and think that we represent them or are giving them legal advice. We have to be very careful about what we say we are doing and what we say we're not doing. If you go to your doctor and he says you need to have a mole removed, if you don't schedule an appointment to have the mole removed, it's your fault. With legal services, if I tell someone they need to file a p…
Before this law, public disclosures prevent the inventor from giving patents. In a conference I attended, the scientists were very careful to avoid publicly disclosing the details of their inventions for fear of removing their ability to file for a patent. But the brief blurb in the article mentions that if inventor A publically discloses their invention before inventor B files, then inventor A gets the patent.
Could someone clarify?
I'm confused by their example. How does this change the rules of public disclosure? Before this law, public disclosures prevent the inventor from giving patents. In a conference I attended, the scientists were very careful to avoid publicly disclosing the details of their inventions for fear of removing their ability to file for a patent. But the brief blurb in the article mentions that if inventor A publically discl…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Disclaimer: I am a former software engineer turned patent attorney. However, I am not your lawyer, nor am I the lawyer of anyone who reads this. (Sorry, I have to say that) Anyway, another thing that many people miss on the "first to file" issue is that it's the first INVENTOR to file. So, employee can't leave company, steal the invention, then file if employee was not the inventor. The law really is only changing in…
(Sorry, I have to say that) If you think that you have a poor understanding of the law.