patent question

IMO that would be a very imperfect world as you would potentially have to pay someone for all the things you invented, but didn't know had already been invented.

Should we check every circuit configuration we come up with to make sure it's not patented somewhere? Probably. Do we? Probably not.

Cheers

It's up to the patent owner to tell people that they think are infringing.

Ideas are free as air. What I meant was, "In a perfect world, the first person to invent something should be the only one who could own it."

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Still, the for sure way of doing this is to file with the patent office. Then it is a done deal.

I don't think some of them even check properly for prior art in issued patents, let alone google. You just need a thesaurus, take any existing patent and change one or two words in the title, submit it 5 times so that it goes to different examiners (again you might need to use the thesaurus to be allowed to submit it 5 times), and you have a very good chance that at least one of them will grant it - they are under immense time pressure. You have even better chances if you change the technology a bit, swap a vacuum tube for a mosfet or something.

It isn't as bad as that, though there are certainly some silly patents.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Really? Cite the relevant case law.

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 at 10:53:48 AM UTC-4, snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wr ote:

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(a) Novelty; Prior Art.-- A person shall be entitled to a patent unless-- (1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publicatio n, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before t he effective filing date of the claimed invention; [...]

The law doesn't say how many people had to read the publication, and I'd think Googling of s.e.d. counts as 'otherwise available to the public.'

(The USPTO website says examiners search Google and archive.org.)

Cheers, James Arthur