Technology and Patents

Patents and trade secrets are protected by securing rights to ideas and the appHcation of ideas that have commercial worth. The grant of rights in patents and trade secrets is based on an appreciation of development, advancement, and invention that will stimulate innovation by advancing technology. Patents and trade secrets are two distinct mechanisms for protecting invention vis-a-vis the appHcation of ideas. Both are supported by the poHcies and laws of the United States. 

The salient costs as well as its technical feasibility (competing technology, patents and company experience pertinent to electrolysis) must be considered. Attention must also be paid to ... 

However, if there are so many scientific bases , are they fundamental Do the ideas of the majority of technological patents and know-how appear as a result of an Edisonian approach of trial and error and past art , or as a result of scientific prediction We believe the former predominates. Thus one can consider the modem level of PMs preparation resulting from art, where inspiration and luck are more important than fundamental knowledge. 

INPADOC (International Patent Documentation Center) is the most comprehensive tttbliographic database of scientific and technological patent documents in the world. The stock encompasses more than 26 miUion patent documents, more than 59 miUion legal status data, and about 10 million patent famihes (January, 2003). The database contains more than 35 milhon patent citations from 71 patent-issuing organizations (European Patent Office, World Intellectual Property Organization (WlPO)) and is updated weekly with about 40 000 new citations. 

INPADOC is the most comprehensive bibliographic database of scientific and technological patent documents. 

The second ceUulosic fiber process to be commercialized was invented by L. H. Despeissis (4) in 1890 and involved the direct dissolution of cotton fiber in ammoniacal copper oxide Uquor. This solvent had been developed by M. E. Schweizer in 1857 (5). The cuprammonium solution of ceUulose was spun into water, with dilute sulfuric acid being used to neutralize the ammonia and precipitate the ceUulose fibers. H. Pauly and co-workers (6) improved on the Despeissis patent, and a German company, Vereinigte Glanstoff Eabriken, was formed to exploit the technology. In 1901, Dr. Thiele at J. P. Bemberg developed an improved stretch-spinning system, the descendants of which survive today. 

G. Stuart, "Technology Transfer— Patents and Licenses Productir. Technol 4, 10—13 (1979). 

UOP Inc. is the key source of technology in this area, having numerous patents and over 70 units operating worldwide (12). The dehydrogenation catalyst is usually a noble metal such as platinum. Eor a typical conversion, the operating temperature is 300—500°C at 100 kPa (1 atm) (13) hydrogen-to-paraffin feed mole ratio is 5 1. 

Some factors to consider when evaluating patent and trade secret protection include (/) the form and content of the technological advance, idea, development, or appHcation (2) the desired term of protection (J) the potential for the technological advance, idea, development, or appHcation to be the subject of a commercial product (4) work done previously (5) events which have pubHcized or pubHcly disclosed the technological advance, idea, development, or appHcation and (6) factors that may be critical to keeping the technological advance, idea, development, or appHcation confidential, and what events may necessitate disclosure. 

The legally trained member of the interdisciplinary committee should provide insight as to the significance of the technological advance and as to whether any commercial product ultimately derived from the invention could be protected by an issued patent. Another important function of this person is to determine the scope of the invention based on preceding events, pubHcations, or activities which may have otherwise limited the breadth of the invention. To this end, U.S. law requires that an invention satisfy a number of prerequisites or requirements before issuing a patent novelty, nonobviousness, utiHty, and disclosure. 

The disclosure requirement provides that the patent be a teaching document, and enhance the breadth of knowledge held by the pubHc. By increasing the breadth of knowledge within the pubHc sector, a given patent faciHtates further technological development and growth, which in turn results in the issuance of additional patents. 

The definiteness requirement serves notice to potential infringers as to the exact boundaries of the patentee owner s rights. Thus, a patent provides a record of what the inventor has brought to the technological field, and also provides other parties with notice as to what conduct is permissible in view of the patent claims. 

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. 

At least three types of citations in patents can be identified inventors citations found in the patent specification, examiners citations found on issued U.S. patents, and examiners citations found on pubHshed appHcations and granted patents from other countries. A patent inventor cites prior art in order to distance the invention from that art, rather than to show a close relationship. Whereas scientific researchers may want to show how closely they have built on what went before, for an inventor that can suggest anticipation or at least obviousness. Thus, citations within a patent typicaHy try to demonstrate the inadequacies of prior inventions and the uniqueness of the patentee s own work. References tied by this type of citation can be usefiil in developing a picture of the state of the art, but often show sharply differing technologies. 

Technology managers should include the following elements in the plan itself the critical business issues the nature of markets and customers the thmsts of traditional and potential competitors the human resource issues, ie, the skills and abiUties needed to carry out the plan alternatives and contingencies to support the plan a patent and intellectual property strategy and the supporting faciUties and resource plan. The most frequentiy overlooked elements are human resource issues and patent strategies (50). 

A useful classification of sensitizing dyes is the one adopted to describe patents in image technology. In Table 1, the Image Technology Patent Information System (ITPAIS), dye classes and representative patent citations from the ITPAIS file are Hsted as a function of significant dye class. From these citations it is clear that preferred sensitizers for silver haUdes are polymethine dyes (cyanine, merocyanine, etc), whereas other semiconductors have more evenly distributed citations. Zinc oxide, for example, is frequendy sensitized by xanthene dyes (qv) or triarylmethane dyes (see Triphenylmethane and related dyes) as well as cyanines and merocyanines (see Cyanine dyes). 

ITPAIS, the Image Technology Patent Information System was developed between 1975—1985 by Eastman Kodak Co., Agfa-Gevaert (Antwerp/Leverkusen), and Fuji Photo Film Co., Ltd., and encompasses selected patents and Hterature references related principally to the chemical aspects of image technology. Search terms used for this table were the same as in the previous edition, and the Derwent patent database was used for the search data presented here. 

In 1960 the author was charged with the review and improvement of the ethylene oxide technology of Union Carbide Corporation (UCC). A historic overv iew revealed some interesting facts. The basic French patent of Lefort (1931,1935) for ethylene oxide production was purchased by UCC in 1936. In 1937, a pilot-plant was operated and commercial production started in 1938. By 1960, UCC s production experience was several hundred reactor-years. This was expressed as the sum of the number of production reactors, each multiplied by the number of years it had been in operation. Research and development had continued since the purchase of the original patent and the total number of people involved in ethylene oxide related research at one time reached one hundred. 

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. 

The IM process is a manufacturing technology that has been modified, extended, and refined for over a century. Many different methods and techniques have been introduced to improve the process and make it more economical in the manufacturing environment. Although these advances have been significant, a technical analysis reveals that relatively few conceptual difference exist between the early process patents and today s methodology (223, 224). 

K. Oppenlaender, B. Wegner, and W. Slotman. Ammonium salt of an alkenylsuccinic half-amide and the use thereof as corrosion inhibitor in oil and/or gas production technology. Patent US 5250225, 1993. 

The innovative pharmaceutical industry is one of the clearest exponents of the familiar process of the globalization of the economy. The reasons for this are obvious first, companies need to recover the huge investment in R D that is necessary to get an innovative medicinal product with added therapeutic value onto the market. Second, the cost of transporting pharmaceuticals is usually low in comparison with the economic value of the product, which facilitates the geographical extension of markets. Finally, the company does not even need to transport goods, as it can limit itself to selling technology, especially if the innovation is protected by a system of patents, and this facilitates international expansion even more. 

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