Comments on: “First to file” patent law starts today: what it means in plain English

By: JHL

JHL — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:37:41 +0000

krl43do: US patent laws require inventors to “enable” their inventions in their patent applications. In other words, you are not entitled to a patent on an invention if you do not disclose how to build a working model. For example, someone could not have obtained a patent in the 1950′s for Dick Tracy’s 2-way video watch because the technology did not exist at that time to build such a device in such a form factor.

By: JHL

JHL — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 23:33:28 +0000

The following statement is incorrect twice:
“In the past, if someone stole your idea and obtained a patent for it, you could start an “interference proceeding” with the Patent Office. If you could show proof that you were the real inventor, the office would hand the patent to you. That won’t happen in the new system.”
1. Interference proceedings were to determine who was “first to invent”. Under the old system, if someone “stole” your idea, they would NOT be the inventor, and thus, would not be entitled to a patent.
2. Under the new system, this scenario is still not possible. If someone “stole” your idea, then you could file a derivation proceeding.

By: krl43do

krl43do — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 19:35:55 +0000

I disagree with this ruling because it opens up all sorts of ways to abuse the system. This will shut down innovation because someone could patent ideas without considering how it actually works. The patent office is going to be flooded with half-baked ideas and inventors rather than inventing will have to spend months discovering what patents vaguely touch on what they want to do rather than actually inventing.

An actually item needs to be submitted with the patent that actually does what the patent says it does. Imagine someone watched Star Trek and bringing in a sheet of metal and maybe glass in to the Patent Office 30 years ago and says this will contain a computer you can type information into, play games, and connect without wires to other computers. Would Apple or anyone else then bother to actually invent it seeing as how the patent already can be said to vaguely cover all possible ways of design it?