Good morning Praveen,
The patent system, has intent, that the inventor will completely reveal the
design of the invention, in exchange for a (time-bound) state monopoly on the
construction and sale of the invention. The intent, is that the inventor is
compensated for the toil in creating the invention, while the revealed design
may help future inventors to consider, an improved designed, after the granted
monopoly has ended.
Thus, the patent system, has the concept, "prior art".
If the item being patented, is in the past ("prior") already known among
practitioners ("art"), then there is no need for the state to "pay for"
revealing the design by granting a monopoly. Already, the design is revealed
and known, so why should the state pay the inventor with a state-enforced
monopoly?
Importantly, any evidence, that the design of the invention is known, is prior
art. This includes publications made by the inventor himself or herself. It is
prior art since the fact of publication indicates that other practitioners now
know of the art of the new design.
Another consideration, is the "grace period".
An inventor may publish, the design of the invention, at some past point, and
then file for a patent afterward. However, the fact of the publication, even
initiated by the inventor, is itself prior art, and is evidence that the
invention is known (and that the state must, logically, not pay for it by
enforcing a patent-backed monopoly).
Of course, an inventor may publish an invention with intent to patent it later.
Thus, the state allows, a grace period, after the inventor publishes the
design, to patent the design. Importantly, this grace period is not of
unlimited duration. The de facto global state government, the USA, provides a
grace period of 1 year only.
For reference, the Poon-Dryja whitepaper for Lightning was published in 2016,
and the current year is now known to be 2018.
As the current Lightning design is designed publicly and continuously published
in the lightning-rfc (thus a continuous evidence that the design of Lightning
is already known), and is in any case based on the prior-art Poon-Dryja paper,
and neither Poon nor Dryja have applied for patents of the Lightning design
within a year of publication of the Poon-Dryja paper, then the state will not
bother to grant a patent to the inventors of Lightning.
(the above describes the ideal operation of patent systems. it should be noted,
that agents operating patent systems are known to run on cognitive substrates
that are highly amenable to external corrupting influences, and thus non-ideal
operation may occur in practice.)
Regards,
ZmnSCPxj
Sent with [ProtonMail](https://protonmail.com) Secure Email.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
On June 22, 2018 11:21 PM, Praveen Baratam <praveen.bara...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everybody,
>
> I just heard from a friend that Second Level Protocols such as Lightening
> Network can be patented if the author/inventor chooses to!
>
> Is it possible? Am I missing something?
>
> Best,
>
> Praveen Baratam
>
> [about.me](http://about.me/praveen.baratam)
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