Is the interleaved marker idea patentable ?

[Robert Latest]

On Wed, 3 Aug 2005 08:58:09 +0200,

Has anyone of you in these newsgroups ever filed for a patent ?
Yes.

However I have never ever patented anything before =D

And I don't life in the United States of America...

What gives you the idea that you had to live in the US to file a patent?

http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/howtopat.htm

....which of course only applies to US patents. Why don't you contact the
patent agency in your country?

Somewhere else it said the patent needs to be filled in the USA.

Of course, since it applies only to US patents, coming from a US
government website.

First I thought this ment, maybe I need to live in the USA ?

There may be reasons to live in the US; however, wanting to file a
patent is not one of them.

So can anybody in the whole world ask/fill for a patent in the USA ?

That would be cool =D

It really doesn't matter where you do it. Depending on how much time and
money you're willig to spend, patents can cover more or fewer places of
the planet, includig or exluding the US, the Netherlands, or whatever.

robert

 

[Keith Williams]

I didn't do the filing, but my name, along with the other
"co-inventor" is on two patents. I hesitate to even mention it, as it
was "the company" that did the patent (people above me hired the
attorney, filed the papers, even decided what part of the device to
patent).

Yeah, actually filing the patent is too much work. ;-)

You surely want 1, a patent on a device that 'does something'
useful. As whoever else stated, a design patent is generally on an
artistic pattern or shape. It says "ornamental design" and that's what
it means.
I have never heard of a Plant Patent as a separate type, but now
that I read "Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or
discovers and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of
plant" and think about it for a half second, this category was surely
invented for Monsanto.

I believe it was more like Jackson and Perkins. They put their "make
no cuttings under penalty of death" notice on every box.

http://www.jacksonandperkins.com/

Item 4 would seem to be a method of applying for a patent over the
Internet, rather than being a type of patent, which 1 through 3 are.

I think so, but if granted, a US patent only protects you from
infringement (or, gives you the right to sue over infringement) in the
USA. For protection in other parts of the world, you must apply for a
patent in each of the appropriate countries (though perhaps the
European Union counts as 'one country' for patents) to get
infringement protection there.
Correct.

For a slightly cynical view, read Don Lancaster's patent writings
on tinaja.com. From what I've seen, he's right on, it's almost
exclusively larger companies that profit from patents. Anyone can get
a patent, but the real problem is making money off the patent, and
defending it if someone bothers to challenge it. It appears to me
you're better off starting a company to make money off the product (or
off something else, if, as in this case, it's not a fully designed
and finished 'product'), regardless of whether you have it patended or
not.

Cynical, sure. True, well I make money from patents too (bones from my
employer ;-).

Every once in a while I see a news story like the guy who did the
intermittent circuit on windshield wipers, or Nicely on the
microprocessor (or was it the integrated circuit?) getting big awards
for their patents (after long, expensive legal battles), but those
probably get into the news because of their rarity.

IMO, the best example of this was Gordon Gould. It took thirty years
and big bux, but he was finally awarded the patent on the LASER,
*after* it was widely in use (1987!).

http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/ElectronicFrontier/LaserPatentWars