July 19th, 2007
Four things you may not know about technology Patent applications
Every Thursday morning, the United States Patent & Trademark Office updates their online roster of published Patent applications.
If you come here, as well as to my BlackBerry Beat blog, you’ll notice that I post one or more of these newly published applications weekly.
Based on some of your Comments, I note some misinterpretations that hold the potential for some teachable moments to you readers.
So let tell you four things you need to know about Patent applications but may not.
Patents don’t need to be revolutionary. My patent posts often receive Comments such as “huh, isn’t this obvious?” Well, yea, technology described in Patents most often isn’t the revealed brainstorm of years of research, but a rather obvious tweak. But see, the company who devised the tweak doesn’t want any competitor to use it instead. @least without a license.
Patent applications have a maximum 18-month gap. The USPTO realizes that submitted Patents often contain plans that if revealed at the time they are submitted, would enable applicant’s competitors to get a leg up on the technology before products or services based on that Patent is released. That’s why an 18 month gap between submission and publication is granted.
Some Patent applications are published sooner than 18 months. Usually up to the applicant, a narrower window sometimes indicates a greater sense of urgency to get the Patent out there, and perhaps, to fend off competitors by making the application known.
Plenty of products are released as Patent Pending. Technology market pressures are immense. That’s why Patent applications are sometimes published very quickly, and Patent Pending notifications are appended to the label or Web pagefor such products.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
