>From reading some patents I have the impression that the descriptions are designed to distinguish the invention from others, and that in practice the U.S. Patent Office doesn't place any significant weight on ensuring that a reasonably intelligent reader can understand how the invention is supposed to work.
To my mind this is wrong. The justification for patents is that the invention is placed in the public domain, available for others to make and use, after the protected period has elapsed. Mind you, in order for that argument to be completely effective, patent law and the courts would have to offer more protection than they do against big corporate pirates who use an invention and count on their large legal budgets to bankrupt any small competitor who tries to protect his patent. The big car companies are notorious for this. I understand that before World War II, U.S. patent law and practice was deliberately designed to make it difficult for foreigners to acquire, hold or enforce U.S. patents; i.e. to encourage international patent piracy by Americans. Doug Woodard St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada On Wed, 21 Dec 2005, Michael Redler wrote: > "As far as I know, patent offices do not check whether inventions work > or not or have merit." > > In the US, there is a requirement for the invention to be useful. Perpetual > motion machines (for example) cannot be patented. > > Someone with skill in the art must also be able to make and use the > invention. > > http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/patents.htm#CanAndCannotPatent > > Disclaimer: I'm an engineer and (amateur) inventor but, not a lawyer. > > :-) > > Mike > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > As far as I know, patent offices do not check whether inventions work or > not or have merit. > > They are solely interested in whether the invention embodies a new, > non-trivial (obvious to one "skilled in the art" in question) > idea or concept. > > Doug Woodard > St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada > > > On Tue, 20 Dec 2005, bob allen wrote: > > > Howdy Teoman, > > > > looking back in the archives I find the link: > > > > http://tinyurl.com/8hjv7 > > > > this is to a patent application, not a patent. Even if the process is > > patented, does that mean that > > the patent office has checked out the process and confirms that it actually > > works as described, or > > simply that the process is novel and has not been described before? > > [snip] > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
