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Patent browsingPatent browsingPosted Mar 29, 2009 22:12 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)In reply to: Patent browsing by man_ls Parent article: An afternoon among the patent lawyers I think oak's point is that if you want to avoid inadvertently using a patented invention, you also have to know about the things that have already been invented, but not yet had patents issued. That would entail knowing not only about the filed but not yet granted patents, but also the inventions that haven't even been filed yet (you have a year after invention to do so). Just like the unfiled inventions, you can't know about the filed but not granted ones either, because an essential part of the system is that patent applications are confidential. That way, until the patent issues -- and forever if it never does issue -- the inventor can still have his monopoly via trade secret. This is the source of the "submarine patent" controversy. Some inventors deliberately slow down the patent application process to give competitors lots of time to independently invent, and grow a dependency on the invention, and then when the patent finally issues, it's worth a lot more.
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Patent browsing Posted Mar 29, 2009 22:36 UTC (Sun) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] As Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, the more I learn about software patents the more I want to write in big bold letters: Drop the bomb, exterminate them all. So glad we don't have them in the EU.
Patent browsing Posted Mar 30, 2009 19:22 UTC (Mon) by oak (subscriber, #2786) [Link]
> Just like the unfiled inventions, you can't know about the filed but not
granted ones either, because an essential part of the system is that patent applications are confidential.
Even if they would be available, as they haven't been prior-art-filtered
Basically I consider patenting as rigged game of PTO & court roulette
Patent browsing Posted Mar 30, 2009 21:03 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] You are assuming that prior art screening somehow works, when everything points to its pervasive failure. I think that granted patents do cover all kinds of stuff in our own software, as it is. You have probably seen what happens here on LWN every time a software patent is discussed: commentators routinely find prior art quite relevant to the patent. It follows that it is useless to browse not only applications, as you correctly state, but any patents issued by the USPTO.
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