Thursday, January 22, 2009
So I just finished reading the Patent Section. This was really interesting to me. I thought I had heard that you could patent an idea for something, but I guess I was wrong. From what I read you had to make the invention and show it worked. What i found hard to understand was the nonobviousness clause. Oh nevermind I just read it again and it makes sense. I read it as I couldn't sue someone for copying my invention if it was an obvious change, but I think it really means I can't get a patent for my invention if it is obvious. My mistake. But on this subject, it seems like the author doesn't really get this concept as he seems to quote or cite the article number way more in this section than any other part I have read yet - e.g., "but to qualify as prior art for Article 103, the reference must not fall only within the article 102 catergories...Thus the scope of prior art for obviousmess under Article 103 is restricted in a way that Article 102 prior art...." I don't know just found that section difficult to follow. Another point I found very intersting was the improvements section. The fact that if I use Inventor's product as my base but improve it I can't sell my product without his permission so that we both get royalties. It makes sense, just never thought about that. Inventor should be very happy with me as he is now getting money off of two products - his then my improved one. It seems like Patent law would be a very hard practice. There are many caveats to every clause and it just seems really hard to get a patent or to invent something and not infringe on a patent. The categories explained are just very subjective - like Immoral Inventions - or Obviousness - Subjective? I think so. And one main thing that I saw missing in this chapter - and Spencer maybe you can explain this to me. At work when we have IP information in our notebooks - we have to have these notebook pages witnessed. And from what we are told at work is that since the Patent is based on the first inventor - it is actually based on the date of the witnessing. But I didn't see any reference to witnessing in the book. Can you tell me why? Thanks - Happy Learning
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I have to say that I also found the patent section very interesting. Maybe just because it is more relevant to my field, but the copyright section made it tough to stay awake.
ReplyDeleteI'll look for Spencer's comment on the witnessing, I'm curious. I would guess that the act of "witness" might have arisen from litigation rather than an actual provision in the USPTO process. In other words, our corporate lawyers have more of a leg to stand on with first to file proclamation if that invention was witnessed on said date of invention.
In reading the patent section, I am starting to wonder about some of the claims I've come across in due dilligence excercises at work. For example, stem cell work is hot these days, and with our recent acquisition of a gene-targeting technology (for research use only) we are looking at ways to utilize it in the stem cell field. We were thinking of making cell lines that expressed fluorescent tags when stem cell genes went dormant (marking differentiation), or while they remained active (maintenance of the pluripotent stem cell state). However, we came across a patent on the tagging of any endogenous stem-cell marker. Given the book's statements on how the law is structured to prevent patents that are too broad, and also ones that are trying to cover yet to be defined products or processes, I'm surprised that this patent was granted.
Further, we know of at least one company that is actively selling product that directly infringes upon this patent. Question I have is, did this corporation go ahead and market their product since they think this patent is unenforceable? Maybe this is a common practice, I don't know.
Another question I have is, is there a database or some special way to search out which corporations have purchased licenses to excercise within certain technology areas?
Dave
As Dave said, requiring employees to have their work product 'witnessed' is a technique for proving something later, as well as for keeping an eye on one's employees.
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