Re: Attribution... Patents and Ideas

From: Andrew <mylists[_at_]cool-mac.com>
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 15:45:34 -0400

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, but utility patents expressly protect ideas (chemical formulae) and there is such a thing as a business-method patent, which notoriously protects an idea beyond its embodiment in any concrete device.

For a brief look at the controversy:
http://www.gigalaw.com/articles/2001-all/kirsch-2001-05-all.html http://www.house.gov/boucher/docs/bmpiastatement.htm

-Andrew

---

Andrew Moses, IP LL.M. Candidate and Job Seeker The George Washington University Law School reply to: amoses03[_at_]law.gwu.edu

on 6/19/03 1:07 PM, Joseph Pietro Riolo at riolo[_at_]voicenet.com seemingly wrote:

>> Wrong.  Many ideas are protectable, using the patent system.  ...

>
> Needless to say, that statement is totally wrong. It is not the
> ideas themselves that can be patented. Only the embodiments of
> the ideas can be patented. The patent system does not have
> the Merger Doctrine that is in the copyright system. This is one
> reason why some people are easily tricked in thinking that ideas
> are patentable because the embodiments and ideas are very close.
> But until more concrete form is given to an idea, the idea alone
> is unpatentable.
Received on Sun Jun 22 2003 - 23:45:34 GMT