Patent Laws patents

The Patenting of Life Forms under the European Patent Convention and German Patent Law Patentable Inventions in the Field of Genetic Manipulations. 

Simmons ES. Patents. Armstrong CJ, Large JA, eds. Manual of Online Search Strategies. Vol. 2. 3rd ed. Aldershot, U.K. Gower, 2001 23-140. A summary of patent law, patent document types, and online patent databases, indicating the differences in content and data structure in the various databases available online and over the Internet, as of 2000. 

Concerning the United States patent law (Patent — Act US Code Title 35 — Patents), Section 101 of the Patent Act states ... 

National patent offices act within the boundaries of the country they exist within and apply that country s patent law. Patent applicants may file applications directly with national patent offices in each country where patent protection is required. The decision of where to hie an application is generally based on the predicted potential markets for the invention. For example, a crop plant genetically modihed to be resistant to frost may only be marketable in countries with colder climates and with markets open to genetically modihed foods. Another consideration is the patentable subject matter allowed in each jurisdiction. For this product, an inventor can seek patent protection for a plant in the United States, but not Canada or Europe. The most cost-effective strategy for an invention that is only marketable in a small number of countries is to hie patent applications directly with individual national patent offices. 

The Japanese patent literature contains even more published patent applications that mention HABI technology. However, under Japanese patent law, patent claims have a very narrow scope. Consequently, a whole series of related apphcations might be filed in Japan when only a single apphcation would be filed in the United States. In addition, in Japan patent applications are pubhshed at eighteen months but are not examined until the applicant requests examination and pays an examination fee. Examination formerly had to be requested within seven years of the filing date, since shortened to three years, or the application is considered abandoned. Examination is never requested for a large number of applications so they act as defensive pubhcations. 

Plants. AsexuaHy reproducing plants, ie, those not propagated by means of seed, also represent a legally recognized class of patentable subject matter under U.S. patent laws. Additionally, the inventor must have discovered and asexuaHy reproduced the plant that is to be the subject of the patent apphcation. Plant patents are assigned a different series of numbers than the majority of patents discussed in the foregoing, such as U.S. Plant Patent No. 3,360 titled "Peach Tree" (7). 

Patent laws provide for several stages in the life of an application for a patent on an invention. The pattern followed by patent laws in effect in most industrialized countries during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and still in effect in the United States in 1995, calls for the examination of all patent appHcations to certify that the claimed invention meets the national standards for novelty, usehilness, and inventiveness. The owner of the technology to be patented files appHcation papers that include a specification containing a description of the invention to be patented (called the disclosure) and claims defining the limits of the invention to be protected by the patent, a formal request for the issuance of a patent, and fees. Drawings of devices and apparatuses, electrical circuits, flow charts, etc, are an important part of the disclosures of most nonchemical and many chemical patents. 

Because each country has its own patent laws, the precise meaning of the bibhographic data and the legal significance of the pubUshed patent document vary from country to country. The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides a recommended code to distinguish the various types of documents and to simplify storage and retrieval of patent data (2), but the code is implemented differentiy by different countries. For example, in the United States an A-document in 1995 was a patent in the Nethedands, an A-document was a pubUshed unexamined appHcation. It is essential to understand each country s system to interpret the status of its patent documents. 

EDOC, available on the Questel host from INPI, is unique among non-Japanese language databases in including information on C-stage Japanese patents, ie, those that have successfiiUy weathered the pregrant opposition period and been sealed as patents under pre-1966 patent law. It also contains some information on patent family relationships from the period long before the advent of patent family databases. 

Patents afford the owner the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention, and are entirely dependent on statutory registration. They are acquired by disclosing an invention in an appHcation duly filed and prosecuted in accord with the patent laws (see Patents and trade secrets). 

Patent-frage, /. patent question or problem, -gelb, n. patent yellow, -gesetz, n. patent law. -griin, n. patent green, -gummi, n. (Rubber) cut sheet, patentierbar, a. patentable, patentieren, v.t. patent. 

Litigation in the plastic and other industries usually involves patent infringement, theft of trade secret, product liability, or a specific performance. With the usual patent law, the expert is expected to report on the obviousness of an invention. Prior art and knowledge of the requirements for patentability will often be key parts of the expert s... 

In USA a patent is awarded to the person first producing an invention, not necessarily who first applied for a patent. The opposite policy prevails in the rest of the world with USA policy probably changing in order to achieve worldwide patent law harmonization. USA utility patents (machines, equipment, etc.) in the past where good for at least 17 years after date the patent was issued. As of 1995, the patent is good for 20 years after the date the patent is filed (prior to the date it is issued) that eliminated those who would file for a patent and let it drag out for many years prior to being issued when it would be needed for infringement, etc. 

In the past, USA competing companies could not cooperate, such as in R D, without breaching antitrust laws. Patent pooling, such as collecting and cross-licensing patents, was precluded. Today the antitrust laws are reviewed, interpreted, and enforced less stringently, which permits industrial cooperation in selected and specific areas where poling does exist. This explanation is a simplistic summation to a very complicated situation. 

Bodini S. EU software patent law is dead managing intellectual property. Weekly News, 11 July 2005. Accessible at http //www.managingip.com/ Page= 9 PUBID=198 ISS=17456 SID=524170 SM=ALL SearchStr=computer-... 

Drugs Under Patent. This book [77] is a cross-referenced listing of over 2500 drugs covered in the United States under patent law and marketing exclusivity provisions of the Waxman-Hatch Act. Eight indexes provide market and patent status information by company, trade name, generic name, expiration date, dosage form, exclusivity code, patent number, and NDA number. Updated annually, this book is available commercially. 

While the tripartite countries of the more developed regions of the world have their own patent laws, and while they honor each other s property protection rights, some countries do not. Patent pirates in these countries freely copy (pirate) innovator drugs and drug products that are under patent protection in the United States and elsewhere without compensating patent holders. India is perhaps the worst pirate offender,... 

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