Ask HN: To Patent, or Not To Patent

Re:Ask HN: To Patent, or Not To Patent by gravitycop on Friday January 16, 2009 @02:36AM (#436306)

You're saying that you can extend your U.S. filing date [EDIT: what I mean here by "U.S. filing date" is the deadline for filing the actual U.S. patent application] by filing a (essentially international provisional application) PCT? That doesn't sound correct, based on this: http://robertplattbell.blogspot.com/2007/10/foreign-filing-i...

[EDIT] I stand corrected. Apparently, there is an international (PCT) route to U.S. patents. http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/pct_strategies/the_third_way.pdf [PDF]

the “international route” of the PCT to U.S. patent issuance. [...] THIRD WAY IS BEST WAY This Third Way of using the PCT as a matter of domestic U.S. patenting strategy gains many advantages for the applicant to control the timing of search and examination of the U.S. application, if one begins with a Provisional Patent Application.

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Re:Ask HN: To Patent, or Not To Patent by jwilliams on Friday January 16, 2009 @02:50AM (#436321)

The filing date always stays the same (ed: Sorry, I meant priority date there) - but, yes, that's my understanding: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_Cooperation_Treaty

USPTO has a diagram here: http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/documents/1800_184...

Under their system, it the whole process (to what they call the national phase) can be 30months - it varies from country to country, but 30 seems to be common. http://www.wipo.int/pct/en/texts/pdf/time_limits.pdf

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Re:Ask HN: To Patent, or Not To Patent by gravitycop on Friday January 16, 2009 @03:01AM (#436327)

OK, thanks. I should have checked on this information before posting. Sorry.

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