Author: Daniel Clausen
Date: 07:45:06 01/10/04
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On January 09, 2004 at 19:41:38, Amir Ban wrote: >On January 09, 2004 at 05:29:09, Daniel Clausen wrote: > >>On January 08, 2004 at 22:09:18, Amir Ban wrote: >> >>[snip] >> >>>Unfortunately the opposite is true. The PTO initially rejects all patents. >>>The examiner does some searches for prior art and throws the patent back at >>>you. I've never seen a patent that is granted at first submission. >> >>Well, they found out that this way they can make more money since re-submitting >>a patent-request surely costs money again. ;) >> >> >>>You then modify the patent, explain and argue. If you convinced the examiner, >>>he will relent and grant it. This process normally takes two years. >> >>While this sounds nice in theory, it obviously didn't hinder companies to >>_successfully_ register absolutely trivial patents. Of course typically big >>companies... >> > >What is trivial ? What is trivial to you may be very non-trivial to another. >Patent law uses the criterion of prior art: If something was discussed in >publications, then it's not new. If it hasn't been discussed, then it is. > >You can conceivably patent traveling to the stars. If it's obvious, then show >where in the literature it was discussed. Of course, even a Jules Verne quote >saying "wouldn't it be great to travel to the stars?" would invalidate such a >patent. You can still patent a specific way to reach the stars. > >If something has never been discussed in the literature, then saying it's >trivial is lame. Many inventions are trivial in hindsight only. > >IMO the criterion is fair. > >Amir It's clear that a line is hard to define, so that every case is covered perfectly. As a software developer I'm very well aware that many things are much harder than they look at the beginning. However, the opposite can be true as well. And it is my belief (not in the religious sense of the word, but after some research when the software patents in Europe were being discussed heavily) that making it more complicated than it really is, is a rather good strategy which is used. Here's a very good example, which illustrates that: http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-05-26-004-04-OP-LF Sargon
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