P3D Re: 3d camera u.s. patent

[Larry Berlin <lberlin@xxxxxxxxx>]

>
>Date: Thu, 22 Jan 1998
>From: Michael Kersenbrock  Writes:
>...............
>
>I'm not an attorney, but my understanding is that ideas are what
>patents are all about (whereas copyrights, for instance, are
>protection for the specific expression of ideas).  In fact, that's why
>the claims section in patents are numerous and worded in as generically
>all-encompassing a way as possible.  They don't protect a
>specific implementation of an idea, but the idea itself (assuming it
>was written properly). Some I've read ARE very implementation 
>specific because the "idea" is almost non-existant and the only
>thing unique are the details of an implementation (probably something
>just done to jack-up the patent-count for a company or department).

****  Actually this isn't quite right... Patents ONLY protect the specific
implementation of an idea, NOT the idea itself. You cannot patent an idea,
even though ideas are what drives the concept of patents. That is the reason
why a patent attempts to cover as many specific implementations as possible
in a single patent. Many patent holders wish a patent protected an idea, but
the reality is that anyone can have an idea, and most good ideas arrive to a
large number of minds around the same time, even though they may be on
different parts of the planet. If you leave out some aspect of your patent,
it's an open invitation for someone else to patent it.

Not long ago I read in a business journal about an individual inventor that
had come up with over a hundred patents in one particular narrow field. He
built a business around those patents, tired of the whole thing and sold it
along with the patents. Some years later, he re-entered the same field of
research, came up with more patents and got into the business again, without
infringing on any of his earlier patents now owned by others. I'm sure his
ideas were close to the same, but his implementations were unique enough to
provide the difference needed for the patents. His newer patents probably
obsoleted much of the earlier work too! One of the things that is evaluated
in a patent application is whether or not it constitutes an improvement over
prior art. This sort of thing is definitely implementation specific, not
idea specific. If it was idea specific, there would be far fewer patents
since so many are based on the same fundamental ideas.

BTW, about Boris Starosta's ideas, it might be best to read about patents,
and research for yourself patents relating to your idea. In my area there is
a patent research library which is open to the public and associated with a
Small Business Development agency. In big cities or near large colleges and
universities you can find libraries with patent libraries. You can spend
several days reviewing the indexes and looking up existing patent abstracts
or documents. Even a good attorney will recommend doing this before
bothering to pay them for filing a patent app. If you don't know what's out
there relative to your idea, the attorney is less likely to be successful at
creating the right application. After all the attorney isn't the one with
the idea for implementation...

Larry Berlin

Email: lberlin@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.sonic.net/~lberlin/
http://3dzine.simplenet.com/


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