Patents

Let's suppose that a novel invention is for a feature, tool, or part for an already existing larger machine, system, method, etc. In other words, the novel invention on its own is useless. In the claims, do I just include the novel elements, even though they would not be of any use without the la...

Does "a plurality" strictly mean more than one or would it also encompass at least one? Would there be any significant difference between using "a plurality" versus "multiple"?

If an independent claim is too generic and therefore it gets rejected and we agree to remove it, which of the followings will happen? a. It will get rejected together with all of its dependent claims; or, b. They allow us to make changes/edits like making the current dependent claims to become in...

For example: Provisional A is filed on January 1, 2024 (with content X). Provisional B is filed on June 1, 2024 (adding content Y). When you file the non-provisional application that claims both Provisional A and Provisional B, the priority date for content X will be January 1, 2024, and the pri...

In order for someone to infringe on a dependent claim, the infringer must also have infringed upon the independent claim. If that's the case, then having only the independent claim would be enough to prevent potential infringers?

There are literally 1000s of dating apps either on the market today or have went out of business. If a new patent application comes in with a feature for a dating app, will the patent examiner check with these already implemented dating apps and apps in the past? if so, how is it possible to do t...

Let's suppose that a patent application has 10 claims, first submitted on 01/01/2024. A year later, the examiner rejected 1 of the 10 claims. In response to this rejection, the applicant modified the rejected claim and added 2 more claims. Questions. Will the modified claim now have a new "effec...

If one was to combine two different variations of sport in a manner that has not been done before, can this new hybrid sport be patented?

I read: When an inventor or a company, who is a resident in India, desires to file a patent application first in a country other than India, it is necessary to obtain an FFL from the Indian Patent Office. This makes me wonder: which countries require inventors to get a permission (e.g., a forei...

I have an invention in mind, but there is a certain patent with claims that look nearly identical except for one minor part, where the existing patent differs. This minor part is in the very first claim itself. Yet, the existing patent and my invention differ wildly in outcome if this minor part ...

If an inventor publishes ideas on a process in an academic journal but then market forces shift making the idea commercially viable, why disqualify (that inventor) from patent protection on that invention? I'm trying to understand the nuance here, not the obvious. I know it's the "rule" but I'm t...

Is this possible? I'm looking to hire attorneys who are majoring in certain fields.

(Motivation) I asked this question: Patent Enablement - how do you balance retention of secrets and teaching make and use (Rough Question) In the comments the question came up: What is the best (or at least very very good) way for a technical expert to document their work and set up for the paten...

Consider the claim: A method comprising: accessing a line, the line comprising a plurality of points; for each point on the line: generating an X. Do I now have a plurality of X's? Do I need to marshal them somehow, like so? A method comprising: accessing a line, the line comprising a...

This is a hypothetical question but of course there may be real-life ramifications. Hypothesis: Imagine that for centuries, right up to the present day, orchestral conductors had used only their hands to keep the orchestra together and to communicate musical intentions. No-one had thought of usin...

Before investing into a regular national patents via PCT (in China, U.S. and other countries) I would like to test the commercial potential of my invention. To this end I might utilize U.S. provisional application in U.S., but there is no such thing in China. But can I file a (cheap, self writ...

I wonder whether there exist any downsides in making a request for nonpublication when submitting a patent application to the USPTO, aside from preventing the invention from being submitted to non-US countries.

The question Why do patent description contains serial numbers like [0001], [0002] etc? is about paragraph numbers. Can a regular patent application be submitted with line numbers? For example, 5 the first lever operatively coupled to the second lever; the third level operatively couple...

Let’s say a regular person comes up with a new design for a missile with speakers so that said missile plays something like Flight of the Valkyries before impact to warn civilians or for psyops or what have you. Missile plus speaker equals novel. All hypothetical to motivate this question. is th...

On Mac Monterey using Safari, once clicking on the hyperlink of the patent number then searching repeated (of course) on the patent by the same number that you just clicked on, the site will be blocked to start a "pop-up windows". If you permit it, a new window will start with no content displaye...

I submitted a provisional on 8/19/21 and had a few hiccups these past few weeks having me finishing up final touches on the last day to submit my non provisional patent. I had technical issues with the EFS web and a few other things bringing me very close to the time. After several phone calls to...

A European Application has been filed. The Examining Division raised a "lack of sufficient disclosure" and a "lack of clarity" objection against the Application. The Examining Division could not be convinced about the sufficiency and clarity of the Application. After an Oral Proceedings the Exam...

I am curious is it legal to compare performance of a patented algorithm with a non-patented algorithm? I guess it would be because it is purely non-commercial and educational even if that kind of research would be conducted by a commercial company. Is there any law case that would support this th...

Say a company files a provisional with three completely different inventions. Inventors A & B worked on idea 1, inventors C & D on idea 2, inventor F on idea 3. 11 months later two applications are filed based on the provisional, one for idea 1, the other for idea 3. Each lists their respective (A&...

When preparing a patent application for the USPTO, the patent lawyer I work with asks me for my "Full Residential Mailing Address" as I am one of the co-inventors. Is it required by the USPTO, and if so, why does the USPTO need my Residential Mailing Address? I only see the city, state and countr...

I have 4 inventions that I want to file patents for. 2 are software related and 2 are manufactured products. My goal is to find one great lawyer that I can trust for all 4 of these patents. Is that feasible? Or do I have to work with multiple attorneys because the category of inventions is too di...

I plan to get patents for my invention in the US, EU, and China. I am in the US. Is it common for US attorneys to either have the capacity to help with getting patents in other countries like the EU and China by themselves or have the connections to connect you with attorneys in those countries?

Assume a patent owner disallows use of some patented technology by some company. Or business conditions of usage setted by the owner are unbearable for the company. Also the patented technology is not a secret. If it's possible to selectevly disallow the usage then it's obvious that such actions ...

I have read that a non-resident needs a qualified patent attorney to file a non-provisional patent application directly with the United States PTO. My question is whether this requirement is also true for a provisional patent application? (My country of residence is Vietnam, and it probably does...

Let’s say I have generated an interesting idea alone and submitted to my current company to proceed patenting and the company rejected my idea to patent because they think the idea is not worthy. Now, if I resign from my company and start a startup based on that idea is it legally prohibited as I...

Sorry for the naive question. I read the instructions by EPO and WIPO on how to file a PCT patent. The EPO documentations vaguely states that if the local legislation mandates a legal representative then it is mandatory when the patent is filed via the EPO office. But I could not find anywhere wh...

I disclosed a patentable concept to my employer and some other colleagues who were tasked to evaluate technical feasibility, they try to instead propose "improvements". This is despite sending them a broad description of the concept and not all the alternative embodiments so likely their "improve...

I have made a product and another company got a patent on a similar idea. Problem is that their first independent claim looks meaningfully different(in my opinion) from mine but there is the same idea among the dependent claims of the independent claim that might be critical and unavoidable. I wo...

Is it a good idea to put an idea included in a PCT application in the public domain so that it becames prior art? Is it a good idea to do so before the International search report is done? And after the ISR had a postive result and before the ISR is publicly released? Can this be seen as a defens...

Since patent registries are fully public, i was wondering whether it is legal to use a nominee as patent inventor to preserve privacy. I tried to google for this, but I was only able to find results related to awards, while what i mean is a person that accepts to be listed as the inventor and wil...

How to define a custom term in a patent claim? I want to define a custom term in my claim and the term will be used in later parts of the claim. For example, A method of an electronic device, comprising: running by the said device, an application wherein the application checks stability; ... He...

Why inventor will use "consisting" instead of "comprising" transitional phrase in a patent claim? If a transitional phrase, "comprising" covers broader scopes than a transitional phrase, "consisting", then why on earth an inventor will use "consisting" transitional phrase in his/her patent claim?

It appears that I will have to appeal the decision of an examiner, and if I could do so without waiting for a final rejection, I might be able to catch the tail end of the Fast-Track Appeals Program, which may have a limited number of slots each year (it did last year). But this rests on the mean...

Help is much appreciated. I am a poor engineer trying to patent something on my own. I wrote and filed a US provisional application, then I wrote a PCT application and chose EPO as the Receiving Office. I chose to be part of the IP5 program for compound WOISA. Offices that contributed were US, Ch...

Can I patent an application of a popular technology? Let's say Blockchain is a very popular technology nowadays and there are hundreds of applications proposed and ongoing in many different domains like in, finance and medical sectors. Now, when I come across a new idea of a particular applicatio...

Are patents titles required to be unique, as for instance required for websites addresses? Take as an example the UK patent description for a patent, and suppose that a patent with title "Bicycle Stabiliser" has been filed in the past. Can I file a patent introducing a completely novel bicycle st...

Regarding U.S. patent law under the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act, I'm wondering how the phrase actual filing date is defined (37 CFR §1.109). What value does the USPTO use as the official actual filing date? For example, is actual filing date defined to be the date that appears on the patent ...

I'm filing 2 CIPs on a US parent application that was published less than a year ago, with the specification cross-referencing the parent and a couple of later provisionals. Should the IDSs list any of those cross-referenced applications, and are copies required?

I was looking at an American machine learning patent application the other day, and it detailed many specific parts. It goes through how they label the data to solve their problem, and how they train the model. Here they specifically mention that they used the method SVM to train their model. How...

I have two interrelated apparatus like a socket and a plug. I'd like to draft one independent claim for each one. Is it possible to draft 3rd independent claims included both apparatus? And if it is possible, after three independent claim, am i allowed to draft 4th independent claim for a system ...

I am attempting to compare two technologies, one of which is claimed to be covered by a licensed patent. The company says that it does not disclose it's licensed patents. My understanding is that patents that apply to a specific device must at minimum be posted on the device. But does this not ap...

I know some algorithms are patentable, but not sure what are the resctrictions and limitation for this. My question is specific for a trading indicator, something like MACD, or RSI etc, is possible to patent those things? For example: Calculate the average of the last N1 and N2 (customizable) pr...

I will publish patent application and I want to share my invention with others right after that. I want to see if there will be any interest from investors. Are there any dangers associated with such a disclosure (as the priority date is granted already)?

I got a response from USPTO about my application: The application is waiting to be assigned a examiner. The SPE has it right now and the SPE name is **** and the phone number is ()-****. My questions are, can I directly contact the spe? Will the spe examine my application or he will handle the e...

I would like to hire someone for building an android (an maybe later windows/ios) but in order to get an estimate they need to know what exactly needs to be done - obviously. Now I'm afraid that upon sharing the idea, it will be stolen and someone else will build the app. Does this require a pat...