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It can be prior art | 131 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
It can be prior art
Authored by: Steve Martin on Monday, May 06 2013 @ 06:23 PM EDT

Read "Expanded Universe."

Heinlein also pretty well described a waterbed when he wrote about the bed in which Valentine Michael Smith rested after his voyage from Mars to the Earth, in "Stranger in a Strange Land."

---
"When I say something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffe, "Sports Night"

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

It can be prior art
Authored by: Wol on Tuesday, May 07 2013 @ 05:23 PM EDT
Okay, my fault for not being clear, I was thinking more along the lines of being
invalid for not describing patentable material (in which case it can't be prior
art because it can't precede another valid patent :-).

And even in the case of the water bed, it's not prior art in the sense that, if
it was *valid* prior art, it would have been granted. If Heinlein's book
invalidated the waterbed patent, then the patent cannot be needed to invalidate
the next patent because the Heinlein book will do a better job :-)

Cheers,
Wol

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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