If a minature headphone stereo system was a obvious extension of technology, then so is a digital media player.
Ah, but then, what if every little piece of gadget is a obvious extension of the wheel?
What if I draw some specs for a warp drive, build a prototype, but never launch it? Can I file for a patent?
Edited by celiawessen on 06/04/04 09:36 PM.
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You don't have to build it to qualify for a patent, but you do have to describe it "in sufficient detail for persons skilled in the art to carry out the invention" at the time of the filing that is.
So, if you leave out significant bits, ie because you haven't figured out yet how they would work, then your application may not qualify because you haven't described your invention in sufficient detail for persons skilled in the art to build it.
Of course you can file a patent application that only makes partial progress towards a warp drive. One other requirement is that the invention must have commercial applicability, must be useful, ie perpetual motion machines cannot be patented because they lack usefulness.
Thus, you could file an application for something that is a major advance towards a warp drive, a missing piece in the puzzle and you would then state in the opening of your application that "the present invention solves known problems X and Y and is thus a major step towards a future Z device".
In this event however, your application is to be looked at on its own merits, not what it may enable others to do in the future. So, if the step towards the warp drive you invented is in itself novel and involves an inventive step, it may be patented, but if it is not, then it will not qualify. The fact that the future warp drive that may come out of it as a result would be novel and involve an inventive step does not matter for your intermediate invention.
Also, novelty in terms of patents is not the same as novelty in terms of colloquial language. If you take a pair of Jeans and dye it green at a time when everybody else makes blue Jeans, then that may be a novelty in everybody's mind but it would not be novel in the sense of the patent system. Novelty means there has to be an inventive step that is not anticipated by prior art.
So if you take the process of making Jeans as a (admittedly bad but nevertheless illustrative) example, then dying those Jeans in another colour is already anticipated by prior art because dying was done before albeit in a different colour. However, if you come up with a better process how to dye textiles, ie less toxic, less waste, faster, cheaper etc etc, and that process could not have been anticipated by prior art, then you have a candidate for a patent.
The same applies if you take something and make it smaller. The simple fact that it is smaller is not novel under the patent system. So you cannot patent a smaller camera or a smaller TV set or a smaller stereo. However, what you could patent is a manufacturing process that allows you to make those things smaller. Or you could patent a novel ingredient which then allows you to make those things smaller.
So, if you see any patents on such things as Walkmans and MP3 players, those patents will be falling in one of those two categories. They are either patents of manufacturing processes to make them, or they are patents on parts that are key components to make them.
In either case, it doesn't mean that the end product cannot be replicated by another manufacturer without violating the patent. It only means that they have to use a different manufacturing process or different ingredients that achieve the same or similar outcome.
The advantage the original manufacturer gains through those patents, is therefore mostly time to market and/or cost, they will not, however, gain a copyproof product. Another manufacturer who cannot use the same process may have to incurr higher cost by using an alternative process or they may have a late market entry because they first have to come up with their own process. In no event do those patents mean that you cannot work around them and roll your own similar product.
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