As a practicing patent attorney/team mentor, I think Alan has captured the essence of the patent system with his post:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
On the contrary, that is exactly what this thread is concerned with.
The patent system was created order to promote the creation and sharing of inventions rather than keeping them secret. It provides a period of exclusivity to the inventor as a reward for making the invention public. Without that reward, we'd likely have a lot more "magic formula" inventions that would never become available for use by society at large. If every expression of an idea were considered to be in the public domain, ideas would be a lot less valuable. There'd be little economic incentive to come up with them in the first place, and basically no incentive to share them.
FIRST Robotics: Behind the Design. |
In the 18th century, most of the "useful arts" were performed by individual tradesmen. The duration of a patent (the time the inventor can exclude others from practicing the invention) was calculated to give them the same benefit as if they kept the secret to themselves (it is now 20 years). However, instead of keeping the idea a secret, the inventor publishes it and it belongs to the public when the patent expires.
If a FIRST team came up with a patentable (new, non-obvious, useful) idea and wanted to license it for revenue, a patent is the best mechanism available for doing this. They could offer other FIRST teams a royalty-free license, while still charging commercial interests a market-driven royalty.
None of the other ideas discussed would achieve this combination of sharing the idea and commercializing it. A trade secret has to be kept secret and can only be commercialized through a confidential license. It can also be circumvented by reverse engineering, which is not a defense to patent infringement.
The urban legend about a poor man's copyright has hurt a lot of inventors who thought that they were being protected. If you invent something and disclose it or try to commercialize it, you must apply for a patent within one year of that first use to file a patent application. If you wait any longer, you forfeit the right to patent it.
The witnessed written description of an idea, which is the heart of an inventor's notebook, is important for any new idea. It serves two purposes - supports the date of invention if you file for a patent, and can help defend against someone else's patent if it show that you invented the idea first.
Copyright only protects the expression of the idea, not the idea itself. For example, if you publish your drawings of a transmission and register the copyright, you can only stop someone else from copying your drawings. A copyright does not prevent them from building the transmission.
If anyone has questions about IP issues, they can feel free to email me directly for help.
Jim Lester - Team 1533
jlester@alum.mit.edu