[sclug] Re: sclug digest, Vol 1 #148 - 6 msgs

[Chris Aitken]

>Patents are "open" in the sense of being available for public
>scrutiny and peer-review.  That's not the reason why they're "open" - it's
>more to do with placing limits on the time that an inventor can exploit
>her or his invention, and ensuring that the inventors secrets don't die
>with them, but it seems to me that in theory at least, that particular
>purpose and public interest should be well served by the system.
>(though in practice, I expect the wording of patents tends to be designed
to
>give as little away as possible and generally make life difficult for
anyone
>trying to copy the invention, and consequently difficult to review).
>
>
Hi,

I have been looking through patents at work (from an engineers PoV), for
about 12 months now.

There always seems to be a sentence in there somewhere along the lines of
"...the use of the invention will be clear to persons skilled in the art..."
or something like that.

Where is the relevance? Well in this case I have been researching Ion-guns
(surface science), and whilst a very complete, and in depth review is given
of the item in question, the man in the street cannot then build the same
item as is patented, as he does not know how.  But 'those skilled in the
art' such as myself, could indeed make a copy of the item. Obviously this
would  be in breach of patent!

Just my 2 pence (euros soon?) worth!

Chris
>
>
>I'm not a patent expert, but I have some experiece of patents in
>traditional engineering design. Patents don't dislose the exact details
>of how something is made, just the principles that the inventor wants
>protected. In fact they tell you nothing about how well something is
>being designed or made, and this will surely apply to software patents
>too; the patent itself need open nothing of the implementation to public
>scrutiny.  That a particular code technique or invention is patented
>will have no effect on the safety or otherwise of the implementation.
<snip>
>
>Regards,
>
>Neil Haughton


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