General
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Patents
What Is A Patent?
It is just like a property right for the inventor. All U.S. patents are issued
by the United States Patent and Trademark Office or USPTO. Most
patents last for twenty years. The twenty years begins on the date the
application for a non-provisional or provisional patent was first filed.
A patent gives you the right to exclude others from making, using,
offering for sale, or selling your invention in the United States or
importing your invention into the United States.
Once a patent is issued, it becomes your responsibility to enforce the
patent, the USPTO will not enforce your rights for you. From the USPTO
you are only granted rights that are honored within the United States, U.S.
territories, and U.S. possessions.
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General
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Patents
The Three Different Types of Patents Issued By The USPTO
Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents a useful process,
a machine, an article of manufacture, or a composition of matter.
Examples: fiber optics, computer hardware, or medications.
Utility patent can be provisional or non-provisional.
Design patents may be granted to anyone who invents a new,
original, and ornamental design for an article of manufacture.
Examples: the look of an athletic shoe, a bicycle helmet, and
the Star Wars characters.
Plant patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers
and asexually reproduces any distinct and new variety of plants.
Examples: Hybrid tea roses, Silver Queen corn, Better Boy tomatoes
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General
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Patents
What can be patented?
In legal terms, any person who invents or discovers any new and useful
process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new
and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent, subject to the
conditions and requirements of the law.
What Does New or Novelty Mean?
In order for an invention to be patentable it must be new as defined by patent law.
An invention cannot be patented if:
1) The invention was known or used by others in the United States, or patented or
described in a printed publication in the United States or a foreign country,
before the current applicant filed for his or her patent. Someone else has made
the same invention as you did.
2) The invention was patented or described in a printed publication in this or a
foreign country or in public use or on sale in this country more than one year
prior to the application for patent in the United States. You or somebody else
revealed your invention more than a year ago to the public.
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Fields
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Patents
Number
Inventor
Issue date
Title
Assignee
Filing date
Abstract
Class codes
Number of
Claims/drawings
References
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Fields
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Main figure
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Fields
Background of the invention.
Describes the problems that led up to the invention.
Summary of the Invention.
A brief synopsis of the invention.
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Fields
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Patents
Brief Description of the Drawing.
A quick explanation of the figures.
Detailed Description of the Illustrative embodiments.
Major description of the invention.
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Claims – The primary legal component
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Patents
17. A method of continuously detecting an authorized user within a proximity of a computer,
said method comprising:
determining receipt of a coded message from said authorized user indicating that said authorized
user is within a proximity of said computer;
determining a presence of a person synchronously with receipt of said coded message from said
authorized user;
disabling at least one function of said computer if at least one of said coded message was not received
from said authorized user and said person was not determined as being synchronously present with
said receipt of said coded message from said authorized user;
enabling said at least one function of said computer if said coded message is received from said authorized
user and said person is determined to be synchronously present with said receipt of said coded message
from said authorized user;
said step of enabling and said step of disabling being repeatedly performed as said authorized user moves
in and out of said proximity of said computer.
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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Claim analysis example
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The Transistor
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The Integrated Circuit
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Patent Battles
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Patents
The Line is Drawn: January 1948
William Shockley had some strong ideas about inventions. He felt
that the person who had the original idea was the sole inventor and
should be the only name on the patent. When Walter Brattain and
John Bardeen developed the first transistor, Shockley believed that
the original ideas had been his own. Never mind that their transistor
didn't work anything like the one Shockley had envisioned.
In January, Shockley called Bardeen and Brattain into his office
separately, to announce he fully intended to be the only person on
the transistor's patent. Each man responded in a fairly characteristic
way. The quiet Bardeen said little and stormed out. The boisterous
Brattain snapped: "Oh hell, Shockley, there's enough glory in this for
everybody!”
The Patent Lawyers Have Their Say: Spring 1948
Determined to be the only person on the transistor patent, Shockley turned to the Bell Labs lawyers. Bell
administration usually supported Shockley's endeavors since he was the leader of the group -- and a productive one.
But as the lawyers began to formulate their patent application, they found something disturbing. In the 1930s, a man
named Julius Lilienfeld had filed a patent for a device almost identical to Shockley's original idea. Since the
transistor built by Bardeen and Brattain was undeniably different, Bell decided to file solely on their work -dismissing Shockley's ideas completely.
Shockley had wanted to be listed as the sole inventor of the transistor; he was now not to be on the patent at all.
Bardeen and Brattain were vindicated; Shockley extremely distressed. A wedge had been firmly driven between the
three men, and it was only to get worse.
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Patent Battles
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Patents
Four Patents Filed, Two Accepted: Summer 1948
In the end, Bell's attorneys filed four patents on the initial solid state amplifier. Two were on the initial work
Bardeen, Brattain and Gibney had done exploring Shockley's field effect transistor, one was for the Bardeen/
Brattain device, and one for Shockley's improved version which he called a junction transistor. These were all filed
by the summer of 1948, just before Bell announced the invention to the press.
The first two were rejected quickly in November of the same year. The US Patent Office said they were too similar
to the Lilienfeld work done almost 20 years before. But the second two -- for the point contact transistor and the
junction transistor -- were deemed acceptable. Final score: Bardeen and Brattain got a patent for their work, while
Shockley got a patent for a different invention with only his own name at the top -- fcas he'd desired.
It's Not Over 'Til It's Over: 1970
Arthur Torsiglieri, one of Bell's patent lawyers, tells a story showing that the patent battle smouldered within
William Shockley for years. In the 1970s, Shockley called up Torsiglieri trying to override the Bardeen/Brattain
patent. Shockley pointed out that there was some overlap between the three men's patents -- one figure in his patent
suggested he had had similar ideas as to how to build a point-junction transistor long before Bardeen and Brattain
did.
As it was, Shockley was not able to prove that his earlier research was successful. Having similar ideas was not
enough, he had to show that he had ideas that would have worked.
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Quotes
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Patents
"He called both Bardeen and I in separately, shortly after the demonstration, and told us that
sometimes the people who do the work don't get the credit for it. He thought then that he could write a
patent, starting with the field effect, on the whole damn thing, to include this." - Walter Brattain, May
1974.
"I got into a discussion with Shockley because when he asked me how many patents I had, I said I had
three of them, and I did mention that I had co-inventors with me. He said, 'Co-inventors? On a patent?'
He said, 'The patents only have one person. There's only one person who thinks of the idea. It's like
ah-ha! This is the idea. The others, whoever else is around just does the bidding of the one who makes
the invention.'"-Harry Sello.
"In the United States, the first to file isn't necessarily the inventor at law, and if you can prove that you
made the invention ahead of someone who filed earlier, you can still get a patent that will dominate the
earlier field application, and this in a sense was what he was trying to do. . . It can be said that if he had
succeeded that would have been a legitimate claim to be the first inventor of the transistor." -- Arthur
Torsiglieri,
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