Conception of invention

The requisites for the validity of a patent (2) are novelty, utility, and invention. This article is directed to an interpretation of these requirements. It must be recognized that the standard of patentability is a constitutionally required one (22), and that the question of the validity of a patent is a question of law (20,31). This question is to be resolved by considering whether or not the patent exhibits what is called invention. The elusive concept of invention does not lend itself to affirmative definition, but several reasonably reliable tests have been established, consistent with the premise that the function of a patent is to add to the sum of useful knowledge (41). 

The question of who is the inventor alone and who are the inventors together is many times troublesome. Let us consider what courts have said about an applicant reasonably asserting that he is the sole inventor. First of all, courts have regularly said that a sole applicant must have a complete conception of the invention. A frequently quoted definition of conception of invention was stated in 1897 in a decision by the Patent Office Commissioner (14) ... 

See C. MacLeod, Concepts of Invention and the Patent Controversy in Britain] in R. Fox (ed.), Technological Change. Methods and Themes in the History of Technology (Amsterdam Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996), pp. 137-53 C. MacLeod, James Watt, Heroic Invention and the Idea of the Industrial Revolution] in M. Berg and K. Bruland (eds), Technological Revolutions in Europe. Historical Perspectives (Cheltenham Edward Elgar, 1998), pp. 96-116 MacLeod, Heroes of Invention, pp. 249-79, 304. See also C. Pettitt, Patent Inventions. Intellectual Property and the Victorian Novel (New York Oxford University Press, 2004). 

MacLeod, C., Concepts of Invention and the Patent Controversy in Britain) in R. Fox (ed.), Technological Change. Methods and Themes in the History of Technology (Amsterdam Harwood Academic Publishers, 1996), pp. 137-53. 

Documenting a new idea by filing an invention disclosure (sometimes also known by other names, like record of conception of invention),... 

It is important for patent purposes that ideas and conceptions of inventions be properly documented. For this reason, ideas must be promptly recorded in the Notebook, at least in outline form. A desirable approach is to ... 

What particularly seemed to excite Wohler and his mentor Berzelius about this experiment had very little to do with vitalism Berzelius was interested m cases m which two clearly different materials had the same elemental composition and he invented the term isomerism to define it The fact that an inorganic compound (ammonium cyanate) of molecular formula CH4N2O could be transformed into an organic compound (urea) of the same molecular formula had an important bearing on the concept of isomerism... 

Unlike the common practice occurring in other countries, in which award of patent rights is based on the date on which a patent apphcation is filed, in the United States the patent grant is based on the first date of invention. To be an inventor in the United States, an individual must contribute to conception of the invention, and may contribute to reduction of the invention to practice. Although the creation of an advance, development, or apphcation may be conceived by one given individual, it often is the case that the act of invention is the work of many individuals, especially in a commercial context. Accordingly, inventorship questions often arise. 

Inventorship. Those who may deserve to be considered inventors include ah. those who have contributed to conception of the invention. Further, those who have provided contributions which would be considered something above and beyond textbook knowledge in the reduction of the invention to practice may also deserve to be hsted as inventors. 

The importance of an accurate and complete record of invention caimot be underestimated. The record of invention should serve as the basic document for estabUshing the date of conception and reduction to practice of the invention. The U.S. PTO issues patents to those who are first to invent. In a contest over inventorship, any available record of invention is submitted to the U.S. PTO to estabUsh proof of an inventor s rights. As of January 1, 1996, any inventor from a country belonging to the World Trade Organization may use such evidence before the U.S. PTO. Previously, this type of proof could be rehed upon only if the activity, documented in the notebook, record, etc, was undertaken in the United States. Similarly, activity undertaken after December 8, 1993 in Mexico or Canada may also be rehed upon to prove inventorship. 

This formula is another variation on the Affinity Laws. Monsieur s Darcy and VVeisbach were hydraulic civil engineers in France in the mid 1850s (some 50 years before Mr. H VV). They based their formulas on friction losses of water moving in open canals. They applied other friction coefficients from some private experimentation, and developed their formulas for friction losses in closed aqueduct tubes. Through the years, their coefficients have evolved to incorporate the concepts of laminar and turbulent flow, variations in viscosity, temperature, and even piping with non uniform (rough) internal. surface finishes. With. so many variables and coefficients, the D/W formula only became practical and popular after the invention of the electronic calculator. The D/W forntula is extensive and eomplicated, compared to the empirieal estimations of Mr. H W. 

The concept of OTEC was first envisioned by the French physicist Jacques-Arsene d Arsonval, in 1881. The first working OTEC system was built in Cuba in 1930, by the physicist Georges Claude, who also invented the neon lamp. 

The invention of the germanium transistor in 1947 [I, 2] marked the birth of modem microelectronics, a revolution that has profoundly influenced our current way of life. This early device was actually a bipolar transistor, a structure that is mainly used nowadays in amplifiers. However, logical circuits, and particularly microprocessors, preferentially use field-effect transistors (FETs), the concept of which was first proposed by Lilicnficld in 1930 [3], but was not used as a practical application until 1960 [4]. In a FET, the current flowing between two electrodes is controlled by the voltage applied to a third electrode. This operating mode recalls that of the vacuum triode, which was the building block of earlier radio and TV sets, and of the first electronic computers. 

Darwin was a pluralist. He was very careful to state that natural selection is not the only motor of evolutionary change. He invented the concept of sexual selection, the only addition to natural selection which evolutionary psychology theorists are prepared to include in their pantheon. We need not be Lamarckian to accept that other processes are at work. The existence of neutral mutations, founder effects, genetic drift, exaptations and adoptations (Dover, 2000) all enrich the picture. 

The Orbitrap. The Orbitrap analyzer, [26] invented by Alexander Makarov, has been defined by the company that commercially produces it as the first totally new mass analyzer to be introduced to the market in more than 20 years . Its name recalls the concept of trapping ions. Indeed, ions are trapped in an electrostatic field produced by two electrodes a central spindle-shaped and an outer barrel-like electrode. Ions are moving in harmonic, complex spiral-like movements around the central electrode while shuttling back and forth over its long axis in harmonic motion with frequencies... 

When the washing machines with conventional controls are optimized further, more and more decisions have to be left to the user, even though the consumer is not in the situation to check whether or not these decisions are right. The users are only able to evaluate whether the wash result meets with their demands or not, they cannot prove how the same result could have been reached with a reduced use of raw materials. To avoid such a problem, AEG have moved on to the third phase of the development of washing techniques. With the help of the concepts of FUZZY LOGIC, a washing machine has been invented that adapts its wash processes to the demands of the laundry in order to offer the most in easy operation and ecology. 

For many years, the concept of the conductivity detector could not work, however. Ion chromatography experiments utilize solutions of high ion concentrations as the mobile phase. Thus, changes in conductivity due to eluting ions are not detectable above the already high conductivity of the mobile phase. This was true until the invention of so-called ion suppressors. Today, conductivity detectors are used extensively in HPLC ion chromatography instruments that also include suppressors. 

Section 1.2 deals with the time period from Dalton to the discovery of isotopes by Soddy and Fajans. Much of the discussion elaborates on the type of material found in introductory chemistry texts. It ends with the discovery of radioactivity by Becquerel and the developments which quickly followed. Section 1.3 starts with the discovery of the concept of isotopes in the early years of the twentieth century and ends with the invention of the mass spectrograph in 1922 by Aston. The literature relating to the work leading up to the 1913 papers by Soddy and Fajans is well and... 

MS involves the separation of ions based on their mass-to-charge ratio (m/z). The concept was invented a century ago1 with a dramatic impact on analytical chemistry.2-3 The fundamental principle of MS requires vaporization of the molecules in the gas phase and in ionization. Early ionization methods such as electron impact (El) and chemical ionization (Cl)4-5 were limited to small organic molecules that were volatile and stable to heat and amenable to transfer into high vacuum. Introduction of the fast-atom-bombardment (FAB) method of ionization6... 

An alert young scientist with only an elementary background in his or her field might be surprised to learn that a subject called thermodynamics has any relevance to chemistry, biology, material science, and geology. The term thermodynamics, when taken literally, implies a field concerned with the mechanical action produced by heat. Lord Kelvin invented the name to direct attention to the dynamic nature of heat and to contrast this perspective with previous conceptions of heat as a type of fluid. The name has remained, although the applications of the science are much broader than when Kelvin created its name. 

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