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"file it in the hope of it being inventive""file it in the hope of it being inventive"Posted Feb 20, 2012 20:34 UTC (Mon) by SecretEuroPatentAgentMan (guest, #66656)In reply to: "file it in the hope of it being inventive" by pboddie Parent article: Jury rules that Eolas's "interactive web" patent is invalid (ars technica)
> If, indeed, every little thing gets its own patent and the smallest advance is considered "inventive", then it becomes a speculator's game in more than one sense: people try and do the least work for the benefit of a patent ("in the hope of it being inventive") and perhaps try and get as many as they can for the work they have done, seeking to have a solid obstacle in front of their competitors.
As mentioned earlier, novelty is not sufficient to get a patent granted, there is a requirement for non-obviousness/inventive step, exactly to stop the smallest advance. As the premise fails the rest does not hold.
Nevertheless I would really like to know why you believe "try and get as many as they can for the work they have done" translates into "a solid obstacle in front of their competitors". A few quality patents or even patent applications tend to be better and also cheaper than a shotgun approach with many low quality patents or applications.
> I don't see how it can be ethical to grant a monopoly to people for something that could well be developed independently within those 18 months of secrecy, either.
Such cases (secret prior art) is handled differently around the world. In European practice secret prior art is novelty destroying but cannot be used against inventive step.
The question here isn't how many *could* develop the same thing independently but how many *would*. Do you have any figures for the frequency of this issue?
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"file it in the hope of it being inventive" Posted Mar 1, 2012 12:58 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] As mentioned earlier, novelty is not sufficient to get a patent granted, there is a requirement for non-obviousness/inventive step, exactly to stop the smallest advance. As the premise fails the rest does not hold.The patent offices are doing a really bad job, then. It is routine (even in the pharmaceutical world, the sector always used by pro-patent people to indicate the goodness of patents) to apply for patents identical to about-to-expire patents with one or two tiny details changed. Bingo, extra twenty years monopoly. It is also not unknown for patents *identical in wording* to existing patents to be granted, often repeatedly. And as for 'prior art', as long as this is restricted purely to patent searches and searches of a few journals it will remain wholly inadequate for the software field, where most prior art consists of implementations and a lot of that is source-unavailable.
"file it in the hope of it being inventive" Posted Mar 9, 2012 22:16 UTC (Fri) by SecretEuroPatentAgentMan (guest, #66656) [Link]
> The patent offices are doing a really bad job, then.
Feel free to give specific examples of cases.
> It is routine (even in the pharmaceutical world, the sector always used by pro-patent people to indicate the goodness of patents) to apply for patents identical to about-to-expire patents with one or two tiny details changed.
In that case their own patent becomes the closest prior art and they will have to show that what you call "tiny details" are novel and non-obvious in view of the existing patent. This requirement is not any lesser just because closest prior art is their own.
> Bingo, extra twenty years monopoly.
Really? If you could change trivial details and get another 20 years just like that you would have a fantastic career as a patent attorney in front of you. The rest of us would have to slog it out according to the laws, rules, guidelines and conventions. Also pharmaceutical patents are heavily contested by generics who would challenge patents.
> It is also not unknown for patents *identical in wording* to existing patents to be granted, often repeatedly.
It can happen in theory but I have not seen any such myself. And in what way do you mean this takes place repeatedly? Again I would appreciate some examples.
> And as for 'prior art', as long as this is restricted purely to patent searches and searches of a few journals it will remain wholly inadequate for the software field, where most prior art consists of implementations and a lot of that is source-unavailable.
Well, if you assume something sufficiently wrong you might conclude anything. In reality what you call "a few journals" is a large collection. For instance EPO has an agreement for exchange with IEEE and ITU. Also plain Google is used. You might wish to look into "NPL" - Non Patent Literature.
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