Patent lawyers

In this chapter we examine the processes that have been developed to produce micro-organisms as a source of food protein. We will examine the reasons why micro-organisms have been considered as alternative protein sources, the substrates on which they have been grown, the various process technologies developed and the comparative economics of these processes. One process will be examined in depth, to illustrate how a team composed of such diverse people as microbiologists, process engineers, patent lawyers and cost analysts work together to develop a marketable product. 

While a passionate enthusiast for evolutionary theories, and their experimental testing, Gunther Wachtershauser is in his professional life a patents lawyer. 

Once a chemist or chemical engineer has obtained his law degree, what does he do with it A number of different career paths are open to him. Perhaps the most traditional route would be to become a patent lawyer. Often, lawyers trained in chemistry first acquired the incentive for attending law school from exposure to patent lawyers, usually in a corporation environment. Frequently, such lawyers were actually inventors before they became lawyers. 

For someone trained in the disciplines of chemistry, patent law can be a fascinating career. It is not necessary, of course, to be skilled in all phases of chemistry to be a successful chemical patent lawyer. Once one has learned the general theories of chemistry and the vocabulary, it is not difficult for inventors, scientists, or engineers to explain to him the... 

The earliest mention of lithium initiation of diene polymerization was in 1910-1913 (1-3). It is quite likely that this was conceived in the fertile imagination of a patent lawyer, rather than the scientists involved, as all of the experimentation reported involved sodium and potassium. 

Scientists do not usually get deeply involved in the intricacies of patent coverage, but it was essential in the case of the A and X zeolites because they involved concepts and science totally new to Union Carbide patent lawyers. During 1952 and 1953 I spent probably 20% of my time on patent matters. 

When the first drafts of the patent applications came back from our patent department for checking, it was clear that major changes were needed. After several unsuccessful attempts to revise the original drafts, I had to rewrite both applications. At about that time a young patent lawyer, J. B. Browning, replaced the original attorney. He was quick to comprehend the significance of... 

Determining the scope of a patent is usually a fairly technical pro-ceding and should be reserved for the specialist. The final answer must, of course, rest with the court of last resort. While the Supreme Court of the United States has the last say in the matter, it is rather seldom that a patent reaches the high court for adjudication. Both patent lawyers and judges find the determination of the question a difficult one, and even the examiners in the Patent Office, while the patent is pending, do not always have an easy time in deciding what is or is not patentable. Of course, the fact that lawyers often differ in their estimates of the scope of a patent makes for law suits. In this respect law suits on patents do not differ from those involving other branches of law. 

On the other hand, many persons trained as chemists do not perform actual laboratory work but may work as patent lawyers, financial analysts, plant managers, salespeople, personnel managers, and so on. Also, it is quite common for a person trained as a chemist to have many different jobs during a career. 

The work of chemical abstracter in Technical Files is best understood in terms of the activities of the department. The function of Technical Files is to receive, route, file, classify, abstract, index, and search all technical correspondence and reports received and prepared in the course of research activities of the Shell group of companies. Using their indexes, material in their files is searched to provide data for executives, chemists, engineers, and patent lawyers. 

There are several commercial companies producing alkali flame detectors. In one version, two flames are stacked, one above the other. The lower, plain hydrogen-air flame bums the sample the combustion products are swept into the second flame which is doped with a sodium salt deposited on an electrically heated wire (31). The upper detector functions as alkali flame detector. Another modification uses a detector jet tip formed from fused salt the flame bums in contact with the salt surface (15, 32, 33, 34, 35). A third form uses an alkali-doped porous metal (36) or a platinum capillary filled with potassium hydroxide and carbon (37). When the capillary is heated to 900°—1000°, the carbon causes the grain boimdaries in the platinum to become enlarged, allowing alkali to diffuse slowly through it. The above remarks should be considered illustrative of detectors on the market and by no means comprehensive. Commercial firms, of course, must add the limitations of the patent situation to the diflBculties encountered in constructing these detectors. In fact, some detectors seem to be constructed more for the patent lawyer than for the analyst (38). 

To illustrate, let us assume that a searcher reads that a chemical compoimd has a certain effect on a chromium catalyst. He cannot vouch for the scientific validity of this. However, he can say, assuming the statement to be true, that it has considerable, some, or little bearing on the search objectives. If his task is to locate information pertinent to patent validity, he may say, "This information may anticipate claim 5, U.S. patent. . . . Lawyers later may agree or disagree with his statement, but it has called their attention to the possible usefulness of the reference. Such highlighting is what is meant by saying the search abstract should be interpretive relative to the search objectives. 

Patenting is a complicated task. Applicants without experience of patenting should prepare patent applications through professionals (patent attorney, patent lawyers). 

The mere act of filing an application containing such examples constitutes what patent lawyers call a constructive reduction to practice. The resulting grants are knovm as paper patents, which an inventor may later have to defend with the results of authentic experiments. WeU composed paper examples therefore do not include numerical values of physical properties that are difficult or impossible to predict melting points, for example, or optical rotations. They use the present tense, and reserve the past tense for genuine examples, a convention that not all patents honor. 

Spectrometric properties allow succeeding chemists to recognize the sample and provide an evidentiary trail that patent lawyers can easily follow in the case of a patent dispute. In the registration form, therefore, submitters note the kinds and numbers of the spectra they or others recorded. A structural drawing and the chemical name complete the form. 

It is important for companies to keep the patent system in mind, whether or not they choose to seek patents for their own products. When technical personnel create useful products or processes that seem to them to be significant advances on the prior art, the assistance of patent counsel very often becomes useful. First, companies need to determine whether use or sale of these new processes or products might infringe someone else s patent. This may involve a search of the relevant records of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (and of the patent offices of any foreign countries where the products may be used or marketed). Second, if the product seems to technical personnel to be novel and significant of the art, companies may want to consider whether to apply for a patent. In such a situation, a search should be made at the Patent and Trademark Office to determine whether the invention seems likely to be patentable. How extensive a search should be before a patent application is filed, as well as the decision whether to seek a patent at all, may depend upon how valuable the invention seems. For a very important item, patent lawyers may also conduct searches of the relevant trade literature to see whether the invention has been anticipated but not patented. Some companies monitor the... 

Alard du Bois-Reymond had been less definite in his proposals, which in 1915 he published in a slim booklet entitled, Vom Deutschen Michel A patent lawyer, familiar with the problems of converting inventions into technology, he was skeptical of Wells proposals for a Ministry of Inventions . 

Patents Before any paper is given or submitted, a provisional paper with that information should be sent to the patent office. The initial simple concept is the most valuable one to patent. To evaluate a patent attorney, ask him questions about previous patents that he wrote. The attorney should understand the patents with respect to an understanding of your field. If the patent lawyer asks you many questions, that is good. If the attorney asks you the same question four times related to something he or she should know, look elsewhere. 

When Stoll refused to pursue the issue, a new player now entered onto the scene. Carl Duisberg s son Walter, a former executive with I.G. Farben s U.S. subsidiary and a patent lawyer for the American chemical industry, wrote to Stoll in an attempt to change the editor s mind." He reminded Stoll how close he himself had been to Willstatter, who had been his dissertation advisor in Munich. The Nobel Prizewinner had even attended the younger Duisberg s wedding." Stoll, however, would not be swayed by... 

The preceding discussion might be dismissed as a minor controversy concocted by money hungry patent lawyers until it is recognized that the U.S. production of these polyolefins in 1987 was as follows ... 

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