Re:House approves major overhaul of patent system
by tzs on Thursday June 23, 2011 @10:42PM
(#2690746)
It's first INVENTOR to file. If you just see someone else's gizmo, you can't patent it because you are not an inventor.
All this changes is how it is handled when two or more inventors have overlapping inventions.
Re:House approves major overhaul of patent system
by ynniv on Thursday June 23, 2011 @11:22PM
(#2690857)
If by INVENTOR you mean APPLICANT... It is simply first to file. If you filed a patent for someone else's work, that work has to be successfully applied as prior art to invalidate the patent. If the existing work isn't sufficiently documented by acceptable publication, it is difficult to use as prior art years later when the patent is first litigated.
But, I am not a lawyer.
It sounds like looking for new gizmos without associated patents and then patenting them as yours would be an ideal strategy.
The alternative? Patent every gizmo yourself before release. Neat. A tax on innovation.