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« Biotech/Pharma Docket | Main | International Patent Forum 2011 »

March 03, 2011

Comments

Ooooooooooooo snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappppppppp!!!!!!!

IMO FItF. Give em a bit more grace period on some things though. TBH though, why can't the small businesses just publish their work in some obscure journal or whatever and let it be "publicly available" in like one library in nowheresville? I don't see the problem with this.

It's a false hope that Europe will amend its patent laws to include a grace period as a quid for the US moving to FTF. It's been debated in Europe before over the course of 20+ years and it will never happen. FULL STOP. Let's stop deluding ourselves. If such a caveat is in any Patent Reform Law, then it's essentially the same as maintaining the status quo re. first to invent. Either US steps up and includes FTF with its own appropriate grace period or it removes it completely. There's no middle ground here relying on other countries to amend their laws before US moves to FTF. House Reps. need to be clear on this issue.

If the first to file passes and hurts the ability of the small independent inventor to obtain a patent on his invention, then I predict that the skilled small inventor will publicly disclose his invention so that others, including large companies, will not be able to obtain a patent on the invention. This will use the current requirement of NOVELTY in obtaining a valid patent.

When this happens frequently enough then the large companies will as for a return to first to invent.

There are many other ways to make the patent office more effective, and faster.

Feinstein's right on the money. Small companies use the grace period, it's crucial to them.

6: The reason is that (a) developing a § 112 ¶ 1-quality publication costs a lot of attorney and/or inventor time (and I understand that the Senate Report will specify that publication grace period will requre a § 112 ¶ 1 quality disclosure), and (B) no mater how obscure, you've given the other guys in the market a clue to where their competition will be. That's a huge commercial reality, no business will ever use the publication route to a grace period. It's a cynical fig leaf.

Sol: same response. Your proposal is commercial suicide.

Roger that, and I would third the motion. Why work so hard and spend so much just to give it away? I would probably never do so myself, and am wondering if You would? Riddle me that if you will.

Stan~

"6: The reason is that (a) developing a § 112 ¶ 1-quality publication costs a lot of attorney and/or inventor time (and I understand that the Senate Report will specify that publication grace period will requre a § 112 ¶ 1 quality disclosure), "

I agree, but you can already lose to a 102(e) ref (unless you want to go down the interference hell path, which we'll assume you do not). So what's the point? Even Eugene the eskimo can see through the present so called "grace period". You're already racing to the patent office, may as well make it official and save us the time and trouble of having a, b and e to apply differently.

Look I know you're paranoid that this will hurt small companies but I just don't see it man. If anything, it'll just spur people to keep a part time in-house patent agent around. They're fairly affordable.

Plus, if making a 112 1st quality disclosure is all that difficult for you then you're probably doing it wrong anyway. Which I have little doubt that you personally are anyway, but lets not go down that road.

I note that I can sum up like 90% of the inventions before me in like, meh, a paragraph? And the other 10% in like, a page? And I'm talking about disclosures that people send in that are 50 pages long. Of course you can sit and expound on this and that forever as some [redacted] are want to do all the time, but there is no requirement for that to happen. Just cut that part out.

Funny enough, I say the above because of how it so often happens where I can cite one paragraph or a couple of sentences to literally 102b 30 claims. Somebody sat down and painstakingly spread the subject matter of those two sentences out into 6 pages of claims. Stop that [redacted] and maybe it wouldn't take you so long to draft an app.

Bottom line, you're already racing to the office, and I see no reason to lean on the "hardships" of filing for a patent. Put as much effort as it is worth to you into the filing and call it a day. This isn't rocket science or patent lawl... oh wait, yes, actually it is patent lawl. Still.

"B) no mater how obscure, you've given the other guys in the market a clue to where their competition will be. That's a huge commercial reality, no business will ever use the publication route to a grace period. It's a cynical fig leaf."

Wut? If nobody reads it then you didn't give anyone any clue to where their competition will be. The trick is to make it so obscure that nobody finds it, though it is available to them. That isn't hard. At all.

Under the current practice, if an invention is described in any language or in any country before a patent application, the application claims will not be granted. Even if the item is offered for sale before the application, and after the patent is granted, disclosure of the prior publication or offer can invalidate the granted patent. Posting information on the internet can make it easy to find invalidating prior publication. Good individual inventors who find their ability blocked by a harmful change in the patent law designed to give larger organizations an advantage will find it better to make the patent law fair for individual inventors by just disclosing their invention and going on to their other inventions. This also applies to disabling foreign patents.

Remember, major progress was due to individual inventors.

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