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Written by : Cristobal Gonchoff |
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Thanks for this great article
Thanks for your comment Barton Schuff, have a nice day.
- Cristobal Gonchoff, Staff Member
hello my name is dr. mark loony doctor Looney is my real name if you born with a surname like mine you've got to get a PhD really it's kind of rude not to so my PhD is in acoustics and this gives me insight into signal processing and that kind of thing which allowed me to come and work here at the IPO as a patent examiner in telecoms there telecoms patents I've been in the news a lot recently in 2012 Apple were awarded a billion dollars in damages from Samsung that case will be appealed over the next few years but it does show how financially important these kinds of decisions can be so I'm going to talk about passed a patent is a 20-year monopoly granted in return for full and open disclosure of your invention the web pattern comes from the Latin for openness mmm in order to reward innovation reward research and because the world would be a very different place if the only way you could make money from your idea was to keep it secret so it's long been recognized that the state does need to kind of step in here and interfere and provide some kind of reward for that innovation in order to get a patent your invention needs to fulfill three criteria firstly does it have an industrial application is it something you can actually make or a process you can actually carry out the provides some kind of technical contribution a stroke that gets rid of all kinds of creative and artistic ideas they're more the purview of copyright and it gets excludes things called business methods if the only thing that your idea contributors a business advantage rather than a technical advantage that's unlikely to be patentable and it need not just be a financial transaction in the past I've objected to a method of giving you your television program when you've watched enough adverts so it's kind of you buy in the program with your time and attend Shin elsewhere in the office we've had a case where the idea was a prisoner could get a shorter sentence by submitting to corporal punishments can i buy in time with pain so these are all considered business methods there's various other exclusions as well and this also gives us patent examiner's a little bit of a shortcut we often get applications for things called a perpetual motion machines okay where you get for more energy out than you could possibly get via the laws of thermodynamics this allowed us to say your invention hasn't got an industrial application come back when you've got your Nobel Prize so the second criteria is novelty is it new has it ever been done before not just has it been patented people but has it ever been done in public if it has if it forms what we call the state of the art the prior art and we say that your invention is anticipated and you can't have that monopoly so when we get a case wheel try and find the closest example of your invention in the prior art and we can look everywhere really and one of the most fruitful sources of these kinds of citations is of course the applicants own publications first rule of patents is like the first rule of Fight Club you do not talk about your invention at least not with someone who hasn't specifically promised to keep it secret until you actually apply to us now this doesn't mean that we're kind of East German Stasi officials bugging tables in restaurants and these kinds of things if you tell your friend in the pub they will almost certainly behave as if they're under some kind of confidentiality agreement but just be aware that it is possible that a later date they could tell us that you divulged your information in a public place which might stop you getting your monopoly at the third criterion and not only does what you've done have to be new never been done before it also can't be obvious based on what has been done before indeed what's called an inventive step as patent examiner's what we do is we become a kind of imaginary person okay an imaginary person with no imagination no inventive capability at all one judge called him a Ned or a team of Ned's and surprisingly civil servants don't have that much trouble becoming this person in the course of their day so we will ask ourselves we look at your invention will compare it to the closest thing we found from the prior art and we'll ask would this invention be obvious to this expert who knows an awful lot about this technical subject matter but is unable to make any actual inventive step himself that's the kind of test for inventive inventive step so there's your three criteria and there's the general ethos of the patent system X very much you
Thanks hermanaK your participation is very much appreciated
- Cristobal Gonchoff
About the author
I've studied atmospheric electricity at St. Louis Christian College in Florissant and I am an expert in mathematical biology. I usually feel impressed. My previous job was military analyst I held this position for 21 years, I love talking about hiking and oragami. Huge fan of George Bernard Shaw I practice scuba diving and collect steiff teddy bears.
Try Not to laugh !
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