

Ask YC: Patent Web 2.0 invention or not? - PatentorNot

Wondering what the communitys' thoughts on this are?  Understand ideas can not be copyrighted (body of work) or patented (steps taken).<p>What about if your product received a lot of attention in press &#38; has users.  Could another try to apply and then successfully obtain said patent?  Wouldn't the patent office reject their claim and point to the many articles on the Internet about said service/invention - state its obvious?
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puneetht
Ideally a patent like that should be denied ( or can be challenged in court)
based on prior art. Prior art refers to documentation of an idea prior to a
patent filing. So for example a person would not be able to patent an idea
that was described in an a magazine , newspaper , or academic paper, before
the patent was applied for.

If you want to patent something, use it more as a defense mechanism, so that
other people can't claim that you stole their idea. Hope that helps.

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qhoxie
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=349257>

