(fwd) OT: up2date patent?

[Roger Oberholtzer]

On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 20:26:29 -0400
Kurt Wall <kwall at kurtwerks.com> wrote:

> Well, the existence of prior art had seems to matter to the USPTO
> anymore.

This is very true. Not only that, they don't seem to see if the 'new' thing
to be patented is already patented, but using different words to describe
the same thing. We have experienced this in the US in relation to one of our
measurement parameters. 

It used to be common belief that you could not patent something if the
details were previously given out. So, you had to patent it before you could
tell the world about it. This is no longer the case. The reason for this was
to prevent the following (which is no longer prevented and now occurs):

Company A invent widget X. They make it public without a patent. Company B
decides it would like to make a widget X as well, and given that there are
no patents, feels free to do so. After company B make their version of
widget X, Company A decides, oops, better patent that sucker. Leaving
Company B SOL. This scenario was previously avoided. Company A's own public
use of it before patenting was 'prior art' and thus disallowed later
attempts to obtain a patent. Thus the 'Patent Pending' on many a product.

Do Caldera have a patent in every country? A US patent only covers the US.
Ericsson telephones came into existence because Bell neglected to obtain a
patent in Sweden. Ericsson did get a patent. So, they could sell telephones
all over the world.

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