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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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By that reasoning..... | 210 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
By that reasoning.....
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 22 2013 @ 06:08 PM EDT

... no more patents should ever exist on "A Method of trapping a mouse".

Because the invention you outlined covers all possible devices to trap a mouse. So all possible future devices are free of patentability. Additionally, since a mouse is an animal - it's easy to extend that to all animals. And so all traps are forever "obvious" because they implement the method claimed and nothing more.

There's the obvious problem that has been raised that you choose to ignore:

    Patenting everything including those inventions that the alleged inventor never even forsaw.
Here's another:
    So how do you explain the overlapping patents that all claim the same thing?
An example of such patents is the Apple patent that was invalidated due to a previous Apple patent.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

If it was obvious
Authored by: cricketjeff on Monday, April 22 2013 @ 06:18 PM EDT
Not at all, you haven't actually invented a mousetrap here, merely restated the
problem in terms of all possible solutions, that is by definition obvious. The
patent will not pass the examiners, at least it won't in any jurisdiction where
the examiners actually examine!

You would have to give specific examples of mouse lures, specific examples of
traps and specific examples of mechanisms. I've written many dozens of invention
reports and fought the good (bad) fight of trying to patent the problem so my
company makes loads of money and been beaten back every time.
I've even used the "Photography is 150 years old if it was obvious it would
have been found by now" argument but the examiners aren't that daft!
Your example isn't broad, it isn't even an invention!

A broad invention is possible but very very hard to sustain, it also has a HUGE
disadvantage, as soon as your application is published your competitors will
patent "improvements" that narrow your invention in every possible
way. A patent only gives you the right to exclude others, not to practice the
invention yourself and you would soon find there was no practical way to avoid
the patents that others filed.



---
There is nothing in life that doesn't look better after a good cup of tea.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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