Patents again

I know that the RepRap community has been adverse to patenting, but perhaps that needs to change in light of the MakerBot "patent ALL the Thingiverse things" fiasco.

In light of that, say that I have come up with a new widget. Say this widget would be of benefit to the RepRap community and I would like to keep said widget open source. Of course, if MakerBot or some other company got wind of said widget and tried to patent it, they would surely try to find a way to profit from it or at least prevent others from using it.

There are a few open-source patent pledges and models out there. The community gets to use the patent through some an open-source license. The widget is protected from single-company use, and the patent author gets a good line on a resume (and practice writing patents instead of just reading them). The small entity, not-lawered-up filing fees are fairly low (<$1k). In fact they are similar to or lower than what I usually pay to publish a paper.

The down-side is that the author cannot get the general community's feedback on the widget without substantial risk of getting scooped.

So, can the community suggest an open-source patent model or resources? Or at the very least discuss preemptive patenting.


With apologies to Hyperbole and a Half

Make your work public, and apply a licence to it.

Mandatory prepatent search has to be done by the USPTO at DEFENSIVE PUBLICATION, and Research Disclosure. This is the only way that I'm aware of to place your design into the public domain. Simply posting your idea on the internet is not sufficient.

DEFENSIVE PUBLICATION
[www.defensivepublications.org]

Research Disclosure ( you have to pay I think ~120/page?)
[www.researchdisclosure.com]

Possibly this company, I'm not sure.
[publish.ip.com]


For reference:
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University. [cyber.law.harvard.edu]
Electronic Frontier Foundation [www.eff.org]
Patterns And How They Are Affected By Copyright Law  [www.tabberone.com]
[patents.stackexchange.com]
[blog.stackoverflow.com]
[twitter.com]

Licensing – Hardware
CERN OPEN HARDWARE LICENCE, (Products). [www.ohwr.org]
TAPR Open Hardware License, (Products) [www.tapr.org]

Licensing – Software
Open Source Initiative, (Software, Documents). [opensource.org]
Creative Commons, (Software, Documents). [creativecommons.org]
BSD licenses are a family of permissive free software licenses, imposing minimal restrictions on the redistribution of covered software. This is in contrast to copyleft licenses, which have reciprocity share-alike requirements. [en.wikipedia.org]
The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or GPL) is the most widely used[5] free software license, which guarantees end users (individuals, organizations, companies) the freedoms to use, study, share (copy), and modify the software.  [en.wikipedia.org], and [gnu.org]

This is not advice, I'm not an expert, ymmv!

Those are all great resources, thank you!

The defensive publication or the research disclosure are probably the routes I will end up going down, possibly to coincide with a manuscript...

My only concern is that these sub-patents do not integrate well into a curriculum vitae/resume (thus the publication). Mine needs all the help it can get at the moment...

I was also considering the opportunity as a learning process while I have access to a few colleagues who have written patents on their own. I have some non-3d-printer things I should probably write patents for as well. And I have regretted not patenting a few things in the past. I am just wondering how one might adequately mix patents (for the credit and protection) with open source hardware (for the benefit of the community).

Make your work public in a database that the USPTO is mandatory to search (prevents some one from claiming, and patenting your idea) gives you maximum control, and then apply an open source licence to it.

A patent gives you the most control of your device, utility, innovation, drawings, artwork, and methods, etc, and you can apply a licence to define the limits of reproducing it. Hire an attorney to verify.

This is not advice, I'm not an expert, ymmv!

Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2014 09:27PM by A2.

Patents in my view are going to become a necassary evil, if only to prevent thieves from taking it, or working along the lines of what A2 suggest above by using USPTO related matter.

Note: You can edit a patent appication many many times, so long as the original claim and basis of the invention do not change. So, file a very short summary, a very short description, and ONE claim, then you have your priority date, also you can let it lapse then it cannot be patented afterwards.

Of course this is all subject to debate, views and opinions, legal onions and far more, but an appliication with a priority date gets your foot in the door on whatever it is you have.

Its a pain in the turdiverse for sure and its just not cricket!

A2 said: "Simply posting your idea on the internet is not sufficient."

The above statement is not really accurate given the fact we are discussing the content disclosed in this public forum. Posting an example of your idea in this forum would be sufficient to stop someone patenting the idea. This forum is classed as public as anyone can see the content on the internet by searching google. The USPTO will carry out a search using keywords in google. If by some chance someone did patent the idea and the USPTO missed your post here you could anonymously supply a link to your public post via a third party observation at the USPTO. Then the examiner would be forced to issue a rejection based on the forum post. Even if the patent was granted you could still submit your post and have the patent invalidated.

From the USPTO website : [www.uspto.gov]

2128 “Printed Publications” as Prior Art [R-11.2013]
I. A REFERENCE IS A “PRINTED PUBLICATION” IF IT IS ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC

A reference is proven to be a “printed publication” “upon a satisfactory showing that such document has been disseminated or otherwise made available to the extent that persons interested and ordinarily skilled in the subject matter or art, exercising reasonable diligence, can locate it.

II. ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS AS PRIOR ART
A. Status as a "Printed Publication"

An electronic publication, including an on-line database or Internet publication, is considered to be a “printed publication” within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(a) and (b) provided the publication was accessible to persons concerned with the art to which the document relates.

As stated on the USPTO website the term publication means to make something available to the public which would include the post i am writing now. Any one involved in the field of 3D printing would be expected to have access to this forum so this forum is prior art.

With regard to filing your patent, write EVERYTHING down, draw pictures as well. Add as much as you possibly can about your idea. Then file all oft the documents as a provisional patent application at the USPTO. It only costs $130 if you are a lone inventor. Then you get a Priority date and you have 12 months to fill out the patent application and turn it into a real patent application (costs about $800). As Mutley3D said though you cant add anything that was not included in the original text so if you want to keep the priority date make sure everything is in the original document.

You can amend the application when it becomes a real application and then you have until the first office action (rejection from the examiner) to file a preliminary amendment to edit the application again. Once the rejections start to come in you can edit your application in response to them but you only have about 2 or 3 chances before you run out of options. You can always keep going but it costs a lot.

Regards
M

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 10:05AM by mikefiatx19.

Quote
mikefiatx19
As stated on the USPTO website the term publication means to make something available to the public which would include the post i am writing now.

I think but don't know that your interpretation of "publication", and "public" is not correct i.e. a post in a forum, (e.g. RepRap) is public and is recognized as a publication.

I'm not an expert in these matters, but from what I have read from the links that I have provided, "public",and "publication" is defined as being published in a recognized journal, a journal that the USPTO is mandatory to search as being public dissemination of information, for prior art. RepRap forum is not a journal, and is privately financed.

Ask an attorney what is considered a publication in a journal.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 10:24PM by A2.

OK, so i just copied the term "Flexidrive is Flex3Drive Early Birds" from the main page of this forum and copied it into Google. First hit was this forum.
If i post an imaginary story about how lets say "a complex mercury based alloy can cure the plague using bovine cells" and then someone else invents a way of curing the plague using mercury and bovine cells, the keywords "bovine, mercury & plague" will bring you to this page. Try the search yourself tomorrow in Google.
Now, if this was a forum about how to cure the plage, or how to use bovine cells for medicinal purposes then it is classed as being the current state of the art.
So how can you possibly say that this forum about 3d printing is not not prior art with everything related to 3d printing?
As for this not being public, anyone can access this site from anywhere in the world. It's most certainly in the public domain.
Ownership is not important even if it is privately owned, as long as the public can access it it is public.

And just to be sure, see the link that i posted earlier [www.uspto.gov]
II. ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS AS PRIOR ART
A. Status as a "Printed Publication"
An electronic publication, including an on-line database or Internet publication, is considered to be a “printed publication” within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102(a) and (b) provided the publication was accessible to persons concerned with the art to which the document relates.

Ok, so according to the above page even a database is classed as a publication, there is no mention of a journal or particular requirement as to the nature of the database. There is no mention of ownership, only that a person skilled in the art can access the material wherever it is.

Also see good old wikipedia. [en.wikipedia.org]

Case law relating to the evidentiary value of information retrieved from the Internet is sparse[2] but concludes that using the Internet is acceptable provided that the date of a particular disclosure can be reliably determined.

Therefore, i disagree with your argument.

Regards
M

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 04:32PM by mikefiatx19.

Holy $hit,
There is a MERCURY TREATMENT FOR BOVINE PLAGUE!!!!
Who would have thought that would exist, i just tried the search "mercury bovine plague" myself after i wrote the post. This post shows up as No. two in the google search by the way.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2014 04:54PM by mikefiatx19.

RepRap forums seems to have a high, high hit rate for Google searches, I've noticed. I've come back to a lot of my posts seeking answers further after asking here.
Also, this is a changeable database, times and information can be changed. There would be no proof of prior art as there would be no proof that it is in original form.
At least, that's what my ignorant self thinks. I haven't heard of any forum being used as prior art or official proof of anything, again, in my ignorant experience.

---

Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

Quote
mikefiatx19
With regard to filing your patent, write EVERYTHING down, draw pictures as well. Add as much as you possibly can about your idea. Then file all oft the documents as a provisional patent application at the USPTO. It only costs $130 if you are a lone inventor. Then you get a Priority date and you have 12 months to fill out the patent application and turn it into a real patent application (costs about $800). As Mutley3D said though you cant add anything that was not included in the original text so if you want to keep the priority date make sure everything is in the original document.

My dad went through the whole process, and if you try doing it yourself, good luck. You really need a patent lawyer to help make sure it will pass the process, expect a few thousand dollars for this. It's not easy to do if you haven't done it before.

On the good side, who says it needs to pass or get through to completion.
By simply submitting, you already ensured that there is prior art listed in the patent system, even if you don't complete it. My dad never did and within a couple days of it expiring, manufacturers were exploiting it and it was on shelves within weeks.

Ok, so here is a doument from the European Patent Office on how to handle websites as prior art.:[archive.epo.org]

Para 3
3. Internet disclosures as a matter of principle, disclosures on the internet form part of the state of the art according to Article 54(2) EPC and Article 33(2) PCT. (For the latter, see the PCT Guidelines 11.13.) Information disclosed on the internet or in online databases is considered to be publicly available as of the date the information was publicly posted. Internet websites often contain highly relevant technical information

Para 3.3.3
3.3.3 Non-traditional publications The internet is also used to exchange and publish information in ways which did not exist before, via, for example, Usenet discussion groups, blogs, e-mail archives of mailing lists or wiki pages. Documents obtained from such sources also constitute prior art, although it may be more involved to establish their publication date and their reliability may vary.

Computer-generated timestamps (usually seen, for example, on blogs, Usenet or the version history available from wiki pages) can be considered as reliable publication dates. While such dates could have been generated by an imprecise computer clock this will be weighed against the fact that in general many internet services rely on accurate timing and will often stop functioning if time and date are incorrect. In the absence of indications to the contrary, the frequently used "last modified" date can be treated as the publication date.

Whilst i agree the forum could be deleted by the owner, it's really really unlikely. In the document above it states that blogs are prior art.
Regards
M

The issue isn't so much getting your idea defined as prior art as it is to be able to compete with the resources of a company looking to patent your idea. They have access to far greater resources including legal and the all beneficial cash. The issue of prior art is good as is this discussion but the reality now is that it's going to require some legislative changes to make any headway. I don't see that happening in the US anytime soon unless industry puts their collective weight behind it in terms of lobbying and convincing elected officials to do something about it The best defense right now is to get involved, know how the process works, submit prior art claims when appropriate and help to reform patent law. I'd suggest being more pragmatic and unemotional in the arguments (even though it's a pisser sometimes), more like Spock, less like Bones. Patent reform is possible in the long term but it's going to be a hard fought, complex road that won't be hashed out online but rather working to change thinking and the politics of the situation.

Quote
Mutley3D
legal onions

I hate those!

But www.defensivepublications.org sounds great, thanks for the info A2