Patent considerations

Patent considerations are complex in combinatorial chemistry. The mass of potential data is hard to compress into a suitable format for this purpose. Commonly, patenting takes place comparatively late in a drug-seeking campaign and so differs little from traditional patenting. One notes however that the comparative speed and ease of molecule construction makes it possible to reduce to practice rather more examples that would have been possible in the one-at-a-time days. 

In some cases, deposit of biological materials may also be required to satisfy the best mode requirement. It is possible to include the best mode in the specification but to describe the best mode so poorly as to effectively conceal it. Because the potential penalty for failure to meet the best mode requirement is invalidation of the entire patent, considerable care should be taken to identify the best mode contemplated by the inventor and to describe it carefully and fully. 

For practicing analytical chemists and on-the-job apphcations, it is especially important to use the lab notebooks for entering observations and measurements directly. Complete documentation is essential for forensic or industrial laboratories for legal or patent considerations. In industrial research labs, the notebook must generally be signed (witnessed) and dated by another person familiar with the work to assure legal patent priority if applicable. 

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