[sdiy] Patents

[Magnus Danielson]

From: James Patchell <patchell at cox.net>
Subject: Re: [sdiy] Patents
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 09:19:39 -0800
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20041212091159.00b3b2a0 at pop.west.cox.net>

Hi James,

> One of the things I have noticed about a lot of people is that they don't 
> seem to understand what the difference between a copyright, patent and 
> trademark are.  A good example...
> 
> You can copyright a schematic, but you cannot patent a schematic.
> You can patent a circuit, but you cannot copyright a circuit....
> 
> Hope that wasn't too subtle...

Actually, you don't really patent the circuit itself, you patent the mechanism
whos preferred embodiment is your circuit, which then is represented by a
schematic. I've seen patents with complete schematics and comments on the
choice of individual components. Very handy when you want to understand what
makes it tick.

For a patent, it does not suffice to describe the method you want to patent,
but you must also identify the problem to be solved and refer to previous
solutions and describe why they fail to address the problem (including being
expensive to implement), this being a review of the prior state of the art.
You must also be aware on how your invention distinguish itself from the state
of the art. A description of the preferred embodiment is naturally needed and
then the claims which is the legaleese which identifies something as being or
not being part of the scope for which the patent holds. The other texts isn't
as improtant as the claims. The claims is really a logical system. Not all of
the claims may be valid, the patent may be approved only for a set of the
claims written.

Cheers,
Magnus