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Authored by: Ian Al on Friday, April 26 2013 @ 03:04 AM EDT |
I agree with you, except that something a little less that marketing a prototype
might be advisable, otherwise the inventor gives the game away. Perhaps a
legally binding NDA with one meeting the court's requirements for 'skilled in
the art' (an expert witness) could be an alternative.
Anyway, you reminded me of a thought that I had some time ago. The invention has
to be useful. That means useful on the day of the submission of the patent and
not some years later when Broadcom have made the chip or Samsung have invented
the display.
There ought to be a new defence that a patented invention that was not useful on
the day of issue remains invalid throughout the life of the patent, even if the
technology appears that makes it useful during that time.
Of one of the patents in a smartphone case, the judge said that entering
previously typed values from a history into the field of a form was particularly
useful for a smartphone with a software keyboard. The issue date of the patent
(1995, IIRC) was about a decade before the smartphone appeared on the market.
The patent was not sufficiently useful to warrant a patent before smartphones
appeared.
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid![ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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- Useful - Authored by: tknarr on Friday, April 26 2013 @ 02:30 PM EDT
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