Inventor, wrong

The patent was held invalid because a wrong inventor was named. The court noted (11) that B worked a long time and rejected a lot of compositions before he developed the particular composition. Now, we do not know all the problems encountered, and we do not know whether the sulfhydrate and oleate of lead were critical but this case certainly illustrates the problem and shows how a court may view the work of a chemist to whom a problem is brought as constituting something more than an ancillary discovery. ... 

The selection of a proper inventor entity is still a serious consideration despite the liberality in changing inventors permitted by the statute. The validity of a patent is most in danger with a single inventor named as a wrong inventor or if any inventor entity, sole or joint, is deliberately misnamed for any reason. The courts in general take a more serious view of an omitted joint inventor rather than one added who is not in fact a joint inventor. There is heavy presumption that the inventors named in the patent are the correct ones. Many courts do not like to see a patent attacked because of improper inventorship and such courts regard this merely as a technical defense. In general, if there is any doubt, it is recommended that the patent solicitor select a joint inventor entity rather than a sole inventor entity. 

The desk top computer, via the Internet and such US compilations as delphion.com, or the various national patent office compilations, notably www.patent.gov.uk/, esp cenet and www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html/, provides access to patents, greatly aided in the author s case by the British Library paper and electronic systems. Patents provide useful literature references and access to the inventors basic thinking, right or wrong Patents, the author has found, are full of mistakes, inconsistencies and contradictions, which enable the reader to learn by comparison, and to sort out the quintessential information. See Appendix C, for an elementary patent search technique via the US Patent Office. 

In most of the world, inventorship of a patent may be relevant as to who owns the rights but it is not relevant to the validity of the patent. In fact, in some coimtries the inventor may never be mentioned or even appear on the patent. Again, the one important exception is the United States, where, as noted above, the inventor or inventors must file the patent application. If the wrong inventor or inventors intentionally apply for the patent, grounds for declaring the U.S. patent invalid are raised. Therefore, the proper inventors of the claimed invention are always determined according to the requirements of U.S. law. 

When Altshuller introduced the original version of TRIZ, he also included the third type of contradictions, administrative contradictions. These contradictions identify the contradictive administrative regulations that must be also eliminated, or at least creatively avoided, by inventors. Later, however, these contradictions disappeared from Altshuller s publications. Most likely, they finally caught the attention of censors, who decided that there were no administrative contradictions in the Soviet Union and thus writing about them might give readers the wrong impression as to their existence. 

The FMEA approach has been around for a very long time. Before any documented format was developed, inventors and process experts would try to anticipate what could go wrong with a design or process before it was developed or tried. The FMEA discipline was first formalised in the late 1940s by the US Military (refer MIL-P-1629A, page 2) where it used as a reliability evaluation technique to determine the effect of system and equipment failures. Failures were classified according to then-impact on mission success and personnel/equipment safety. 

The discovery was only part of the importance of Leblanc s contribution. He also commercialized the technology. Leblanc built his leading-edge technology facility at the La Franciade works in St. Denis, outside of Paris in 1791. Partners in the venture were Louis Philip 11, the Duke of Orleans (1743 - 1793), Michel Jean Jerome Dize (1764 - 1852) and Henri Shee. The small facility, measuring 10 X 15 meters, produced 0.25 tonnes per day of soda ash. Unfortunately for the inventor and his partners, France was soon in the turmoil of the Revolution, and the major investor was on the wrong side. By the order of the Committee of Public Safety, the facility was confiscated by the state in 1794, not because of Leblanc,... 

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