Re:What3Words sends legal threat to security researcher for ...
by Tor3 on Monday May 03, 2021 @02:38AM
(#27022287)
That's the theory. In practice it works as was described above - they look for existing patents. Looking for prior work to any degree would presumably make the cost (and time) astronomical (or at least not covering what they're paid), as a general rule. The world is very different from when the patent system was established.
Re:What3Words sends legal threat to security researcher for ...
by gnicholas on Monday May 03, 2021 @03:32AM
(#27022548)
It's possible that in some fields, the PTO focuses on patents because so many of the innovations are patented.
But this doesn't fit my experience, having worked for well over a decade in Silicon Valley (first as a lawyer, and then as a founder). I could be wrong — this is just the sense I've gotten from talking with patent prosecutors at my old firm, and from talking with my outside counsel about our prosecution strategy.
They don't just look for prior patents, they look for prior art (which includes any public research papers, presentations, products, etc.) as well. So if someone else did the thing you claim to have invented (even if they didn't patent it), you can't get a patent.
And even if someone didn't do the thing you're claiming, but they did something that makes your claimed invention an obvious thing to do, you also can't get a patent.
The obviousness standard is generally harder to overcome than the novelty standard.