Alan, Thank you >>> On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 01:43 pm, you wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-02-16 at 23:56, Nicholas Tomlin wrote:
> <SNIP>
>
> > They have to patent it here for it to be valid here.
>
> <SNIP>
>
> patent laws, Alan Tyree might be able to illucidate on this. If you ever
>
> > wrote a scripting file (and it worked) before they did, that is prior art
> > -
Prior art prevents a person (legal or individual) from gaining a patent..
because the idea was obviously someone else�s, unless there is something very
unique about their idea that wildly differentiates it from existing
technologies.
>
> I'm not an IP expert. Halsbury's Laws of Australia says:
>
> [240-5019] International arrangements Australia is a party to the Paris
> Convention 1883. Under the Paris Convention, an applicant for a patent
> filed in one of the convention countries (known as the 'basic'
> application) may,
*****
> within 12 months of the date of filing of the initial
> application, apply for protection in one or more of the other convention
> countries.
*****
Here is where they come unstuck, doubtless with the huge pool of money at hand
$M patents would have been applied for and would be in process in every
country in the world, but if not lodged within 12 months they leave
themselves open to attack.
> Further, if an applicant wishes to reserve its patent rights
> in a number of countries throughout the world, it is possible to file an
> international patent application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty
> 1970 ('PCT'). [Footnotes omitted]
12 month limitation applies - this is in the $250k cost, a mere drop in the
petty cash bucket for multinational software co�s.
>
> My understanding is that the local patent would be subject to all the
> usual methods of attack.
What methods Alan, an appraisal would be nice....
Regards,
Nicholas Tomlin.
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