Talk:Patent/Archive 2

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Clarification

I think early in the article it should be explained that the use of the word patented is sometimes simply used to express the uniqueness of an idea, such as "my patented mango-fish tacos". Ken 03:18, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

• • But this usage is WRONG. It's akin to saying "Jim's trademark mango-fish tacos." It's an incorrect use of the word patent, and in my example, an incorrect use of the word trademark.

In order to properly use the word patent, one would have to actually hold a patent granted from the USPTO. Trademark rights can exist without registration, via common law rights, but generally these days most companies and persons register trademarks with the USPTO too.

Actually your example is wrong. The good old dictionaries pretty much agree that trademark does not refer strictly to a trademark right. So for someone to say Jim's trademark mango-fish tacos would be appropriate because it is for which Jim is known. However, the use of patented in this manner does not seem as supported by dictionaries. And please sign remarks, even if you are just an anonymous user. -Thebdj 15:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

It's not just incorrect, but potentially dangerous to encourage loose usage of the term "patented". In some countries it is a criminal offence to falsely represent that something is patented, at least in the case of a product being sold (for example, the UK - section 110 of the Patents Act 1977). Trademark is OK (at least in the jurisdictions that I know of), as long as there is no implication that it is registered. Tim B 18:32, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Patent Search Sites

I am all for the removal of any site with Ads, period. I didn't do it in my recent purge, but most the services these sites offer are all availabe through independent patent offices at no fee. I believe we should just link to the USPTO search site, KIPO (Korea), the EPO search site, and any other independent ones we want to link. EPO's search does a good job of searching a wide variety of patents including the US System. Does anyone else seem to think the best way to avoid spam is to just not link these other sites? I have no problems with any free of adverts because those sites aren't getting ad revenue from our links. I want some guidance before I go hacking and slashing the links section anymore. -Thebdj 06:10, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Overlap and duplication

There seems to be a large amount of overlap between many of the articles in the field of patents and I think there is substantial scope for improvement. As an initial step to tidying things up, I propose to centralise all pre-grant details at either Patent application or Patent prosecution (not sure which yet). This article does refer to Patent prosecution as being the main article on that area, but then goes on to give lots of detail on the matter, which detracts from the other good content of this article that is directly related to the article title. Any comments? Kcordina ^Talk 14:36, 27 March 2006 (UTC) See temporary articles at Patent prosecution/temp and Patent application/temp that are undergoing review to replace the relevent existing articles. Kcordina ^Talk 12:32, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

There are now new articles at Patent prosecution and Patent application. I am in the process of revising all articles in this set to bring consistency and remove overlap. Kcordina ^Talk 08:13, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Patent template?

I searched for patent wiki-templates (something like {{US-patent|123456789}}, to provide an external link to patent documents) but found none. Is there none, or have I just overlooked them? — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:20, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Remove the hyphen: {{US patent|6456789}}, U.S. patent 6,456,789. --Edcolins 10:12, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Criticism section

A criticism section should fairly represent the views of critics. As of the 11th April this did not appear to be the case, and the edits made by me on that date were intended to remedy this deficit. I removed content strongly supportive of patents to the rationale section, reordered the remainder to make it flow more logically, added a definitive statement of the monopoly argument which seemed strangely missing, adjusted the balance of the historical record section, and appended an extremely brief summary of modern abuses, as a critic might identify them. I believe the result is fair and is now NPOV to the extent that is appropriate in a section explicitly presenting a particular viewpoint. It has made the article slightly longer so some further editing for length may be appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.217.76.77 (talk • contribs)

I've reworked the criticism section somewhat - the main changes are to the first paragraph, where I've highlighted that parallel inventors may have their own rights, and also to the later paragraphs where I've highlighted that submarine patents are not really an issue any more and toned down some of the other points as they came across as being much more significant that, perhaps, they are. Kcordina ^Talk 08:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Excised this material. Too much detail. Could usefully form the basis of a separate patent abuse section.

Aspects of modern day patent usage that are particularly criticised include the use of submarine patents, where the patent applicant uses a prolonged patent application process to tailor the patent to cover emerging technology developed by others (although the submarine patent is now practically extinct since all significant patent systems grant patents with a term of 20 years from filing). Companies nick-named patent trolls have been cited recently as mis-using patents. Patent trolls acquire patent rights and attempt to profit by licensing those patent rights. This is seen, by some, as a mis-use of those rights as the trolls do not themselves conduct business in the field of the patents, nor have they made the inventions, they merely attempt to profit from other peopels inventions.

A further emerging concept is that of patent thickets. Patent thickets are large groups of patents covering a particular area of technology. The argument against such groups of patents is that they prevent any competitor from entering a market due to the requirement to licence a large number of patents. Since such groups are generally established by large companies, it is argued to be an abuse of a dominant position. There has been no attempt to prevent the forming of such groups of patents in a court, and currently it is merely an academic point.

Good call, makes sense. I don't like the following paragraph though

"In modern use patents have not proved helpful in opening up trade secrets. Patents are usually written to suit the needs of lawyers and often lack sufficient detail to be useful in a technical sense. It has also been suggested that market incentives alone would be sufficient incentive to innovate even in the absence of patents."

It reads, to me, like a very POV criticism of patents - particularly the statement "patents are usually written to suit the needs of lawyers". I can assure you that that is not the case. Patents are very much written to comply with the rules of the patent office. Patents are often seen as "lacking sufficient detail" because they are read by people who are not experts in the field - when read by such people they do contain sufficient detail and information.

By 'expert in the field' you must mean patent attorney? They are pretty opaque to everyone else.

How about something like:-

All patents are published and so there is a tension to the applicant between including sufficient detail to secure patent protection and including excessive information and thereby giving away "trade secrets" to the disadvantage of their company. It has been argued that the sufficiency requirements of patents are not rigorous enough and that patents may be granted without any knowledge being imparted to society.

OK - I like this. Lets go for it. Possibly a little verbose but I can't see how to do it better. However the sentence about market incentives alone possibly being sufficient shouldn't get lost. I've implemented the changes.

Kcordina ^Talk 08:09, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

PS. When posting to talk pages - please add four tildas (~~~~) to the end of your comments to "sign" them so we know who is saying what.

Overall I am much happier about the section now. It had serious POV problems when I started that have now been largely fixed. I'm probably going to turn my attention to Economics and patents next - an article which I believe has serious POV problems in that the critical side of the issue seems to be completely absent.

Hawthorn 14:44, 13 April 2006 (UTC) (the same guy - but logged in)

Good stuff. I'll join you over on Economics and patents at some point. Am slowly working through the various patent articles as they are a bit of an overlapping web at the moment, most of which need a good rework. As to who the expert is who understands patents - hopefully, experts in the technology disclosed will understand it, that is (or should be) the target audience. As patent attorneys understanding them - not always, we just write them ;-) Kcordina ^Talk 17:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Kcordina, Hawthorne, Great collaboration. I like what you've done to the criticism section.--Nowa 21:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Invention Development firms

Would this be an appropriate place to inform the public about the scams of invention development firms and the virtually non-existence of any track record of success? 69.239.225.126 14:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)larry

Larry, I think it's great topic, but it would be more appropriate as a separate article. Dont forget sources.--Nowa 21:59, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Legal concepts of patents article?

I've been wrestling with how best to deal with the (in my view) absurd number of pages that exist for patent topics, and how best to deal with them all. See, for example, the see also section of the patent page - not only is it hard to read, the chances of keeping all of the articles sufficiently cross-linked that no pages get lost are slim. I think the best answer I've come up with is to create an article with a title of something like "Legal concepts of patents". That page would then be home to very brief discussions of the various legal concepts that currently have their own page - where the concept is small enough, it would only exist on that page (with redirects as appropriate), or where the concept is larger, a brief summary could be given with a link off to the main article. That way, the see also section can be shrunk to one (or a few) pages, and links can go to sections in that page. Any thoughts? Kcordina ^Talk 08:35, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

The number of pages about specific patent legal concepts is not necessarily a bad thing, each page may evolve into a long and rich article. A specific article about "Legal concepts of patents" (or list of patent legal concepts) may be useful. IMHO it would be nice as well to expand these articles: United States patent law, European patent law, Japanese patent law, United Kingdom patent law (patent law is essentially of territorial nature), and to have comparative sections in each of the common, specific, patent legal concepts (how does the novelty requirement differs throughout the world in novelty (patent), and so on). I suggest the following improvements:

* Adding an article entitled list of patent legal concepts (maybe with no more than a few words to explain them), with some form of organized layout (?) and removing all the items from the corresponding see also section in patent

* Adding an article about harmonization of patent laws

* Merging first to file and first to invent

* Merging clearance search and opinion and patent infringement

--Edcolins 09:37, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I think all of the above is great. I would still like to keep patent as "home base", however. This is where someone new to patents is most likely to go first to learn about them.

In terms of an overall taxonomy of patent articles, how about:

Legal

Social justice

Economic / political

International

Oddities

We could then start to add genera within these overall classes and sort the current articles according to the genera.--Nowa 22:07, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you on the above comments. list of patent legal concepts now exists - currently as simply a list cut and pasted from Patents. It needs some description adding, and some form of ordering. The national law articles definitely need work and bringing them into a standard format would be beneficial. I agree that an article on harmonisation of patent laws is a good idea, and feel a good starting pointing for it would be a comparison of the various existing laws. The mergers you propose are also good. patent infringement also needs a total rewrite away from its US bias. Nowa, I agree, patent should be 'central' article. I agree with your taxonomy, but perhaps polical is more social justice oriented than economic? Kcordina ^Talk 07:59, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Some edits for discussion

I've removed the following edits from the article as I disagree with their inclusion. Let's discuss them here to decide how to include the material:-

[a] Patents can only be enforced through civil litigation

Is this definitely true everywhere? I'd prefer something less strong like Patents are generally enforced.. or Patents are enforced, I've got a niggling feeling there are some criminal provisions associated with patents.

I agree that Kcordina's edit is sensible. I'm not aware of any criminal provisions relating to enforcement of patents as such [in UK, for example, direct criminal provisions relate only to falsification of the register, false claims of patent or application existing and misuse of the title "Patent Office"], but criminal sanctions are commonly proposed and it would be extremely difficult to say for certain that there was no country where criminal sanctions might apply at least in some very specialised situations. --Tim B 09:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[b] Which leads to a greater division of labour, and hence to more rapide and sustainable economic growth, as per Adam Smith.

I think this needs a source; where did Adam Smith state this?

[c] Although this arguments has failed to be demonstrated in reality, the main reason being that all property is a monopoly right conferred to the owner that property, and hence; patent rights are akin to property rights, which always tend to contribute to the general good.

I really don't like this bit. The criticism section is currently set out in a very 'x has been proposed,y has been postulated - but this section has a suggestion of solid fact about it, which I don't think can be substantiatd. I also don't understand the bit after the semicolon, always tend to doesn't work for me - they either always do or the tend to, they can't do both.

I agree. It is a valid issue to expand on (though possibly not on the main Patent page due to issues of space), but as set out the sentence fails the POV test. If retained in principle, it would need an indication of why normal property rights always tend to contribute to the general good (I think that many people would dispute at least the "always" part of that so it can't be taken as read) and then a better argument of why this necessarily would apply to intellectual property, which is a much harder concept for the lay person to understand. --Tim B 09:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[d] the grant of a patent is, essentially, the grant of a monopoly or the grant of a patent is, supposedly, the grant of a monopoly

To my eyes, it's got to be the former - the grant of a patent is the grant of a monopoly, there's no suppsedly about it.

It depends on how you define monopoly and what significance you impart to essentially. Many people argue that there is a difference between a monopoly and an exclusive right (which is true as I would use the terms in writing a paper, even though the difference is totally irrelevant to the vast majority of practical situations and I might use the term monopoly loosely in conversation). --Tim B 09:35, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

[e] patents are sometimes granted without any knowledge being imparted to society, especially with reference to source-code in software programs.

The bit after the comma worries me - I don't see the relevence of it. But this may be US-centric problem with which I'm not familiar.

Kcordina ^Talk 08:27, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Many of these issues are covered in software patent debate. It might be more appropriate to expand upon that article.--Nowa 13:12, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Public commentary on pending patent applications

For those interested, there is a new web site which posts US patent applications and provides a blog like forum for commentary and linkage to prior art. The site is Patent debate.

This is clearly a commercial site and normally I would be the first to delete a link to it as linkspam. Because it is unique (to the best of my knowlege) and serves a long felt need, however, I think it's worth incorporating into one of the exiting patent articles.

Any suggestions?--Nowa 00:51, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Intriguing - it strikes me as being linked to the public-review of patents concept, of which I have completely forgotten the name. I thought we had a link to that page, but can't find it now. Not sure if it should go in as a link or not - yes, its commercial, but it may also be of relevence. I'm not particularly biased either way. Kcordina ^Talk 08:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

First american patents

Where can I put the 1st patents? USPatent 16:52, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

U.S. patent 0,000,001 1st numerical

U.S. patent D000001 1st Design

U.S. patent RE00001 1st Reissued

I suggest in History of patent law. --Edcolins 17:49, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

Shunpei Yamazaki

Holder of the most patents: Shunpei Yamazaki. violet/riga (t) 23:05, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

US: Three kinds of patents

I was thinking that it might be good to have the three kinds of patents in the US and any others throughout the world, if more exist.

Currently the provides the following three patents:

1. plant patents - covers asexually reproduced plants and is predominately used by plant breeders 2. design patents - covers appearance of an article to the extent that the design or appearance is dictated by aesthetic considerations. 3. utility patents - majority - device or an article, a composition of matter, a method or a process of doing or making something, or, less commonly a new application for an existing device or material, or a product made by a particular new process.

NOTE: Some of this content is copied out of "Essentials of Intellectual Property" 2004.

This should go in the United States Patent and Trademark Office article. But not in a copyvio form. (If it's not there already) Kcordina ^Talk 08:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Edits by 203.118.32.71

I'm not keen on the edits by the above IP, but rather than be somewhat impolite and simply revert them (as I did at Patent attorney), can someone else proffer an opinion. I don't like them as the new version conveys less information, is misleading as it implies drawings are always required and similarly with renewal fees. Also, the link the patent attorney article isn't needed at that point. Would the editor comment please on why they think the new version is an improvement. Kcordina ^Talk 08:29, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I concur with your opinion. I partially reverted the article to the previous version. If an edit does not improve an article, we ought to be bold and react IMHO. --Edcolins 09:46, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Which patents are expired prematurely?

How do you find out whether a certain patent had its maintenance fees paid and is still active or not? Talking about patents within the past 20 years, of course. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.78.73.173 (talk • contribs)

Look at the register of the patent authority in question - for example, for UK patents, the register is accessible at [1]. Kcordina ^Talk 08:10, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Though you should be aware that rights holders can pay their renewal fees up to 6 months late in all Paris Convention States (Article 5bis) and in many can also apply for restoration of rights after that (though this is often subject to special provisions maintaining the rights of anyone who has begun to work the invention in the meantime). Tim B 08:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Ebay paragraph

With regard to the paragraph just added to the article about the Ebay judgement, does the judgement really address the problem in the 1st half of the paragraph? My understanding of Ebay is that it says that a final injunction is an equitable remedy, not a statutory one, and the judge must weigh up factors in deciding whether to issue one. This doesn't seem to be connected to the first half of the paragraph which is talking about fragmentation of patent rights. I haven't read the judgement though, so it may well talk about that as well. Can anyone (preferable the editor) enlighten me? Kcordina ^Talk 14:39, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know the Ebay decision well enough to write anything meaningful, but I don't think that this is suitable material for the general Patent entry since it is specific to US law. It ought to be approached in a more general way, indicating that some jurisdictions seek to address this issue by permitting compulsory licences in certain circumstances. It might go on to say that this is sometimes on a statutory basis (such as UK Patents Act Section 48A(1)(b)) but and in others on an equitable basis (perhaps mentioning Ebay if it is relevant). It might also mention TRIPS Article 31(l). But again, I wouldn't claim to be a suitable expert in this field. Tim B 13:38, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Cut and pasted from above:-

A recent post suggests the case eBay v. Mercexchange corrects a problem in patent law by permitting some use to others of the patented process. I believe that over-states the case <http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-130.ZS.html>. The opinion by Justice Thomas merely says the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit applied the wrong test when it permitted a permananent injunction against eBay. The CAFC followed a "general rule" that permanent injunctions would be granted barring exceptional circumstances. That's the wrong test. The opinion outlines a four-factor test which must be applied before a permanent injunction can be granted. Since the CAFC didn't use it, the decision of the CAFC was vacated and the case was remanded to the Federal Circuit. Now the CAFC has to re-consider the case - whether the district court was correct when it refused to grant the permanent injunction. The fourth part of the test, "that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction," may make it difficult for Mercexchange to win the permanent injunction on remand, but that's not at all the same as saying the issue is "solved." I would delete the reference to eBay v. Mercexchange altogether, or if not, then I would explain in greater detail what's going on. It may be possible for an infringer to continue using the patented device or process, if the public interest would be served and an adequate alternative remedy can be found. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by smallgwg (talk • contribs) .