
Quick, Patent It  - UsNThem
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08sun3.html
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jamesbressi
Since we have some patent people on here, does anyone have any great resources
(that aren't the usual google search spam) to show you examples and how to go
about filing your patent without having to dish out big bucks for a patent
lawyer and someone to help you write it?

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nudded
well quite frankly, you will need to hire someone, or else your patent will
probably be worthless. A lot depends on the writing and if you get it wrong,
you will lose in court.

~~~
jbronn
I second the parent. The typical inventor thinks the description and drawings
are important, while they are really secondary to the claims which are what is
legally protected. Unfortunately, writing a good set of claims is an art that
can only be mastered through a lot of experience and research into what has
been effective with the USPTO in addition to what has been upheld in court.
While this is not out of reach of the HN audience, your time would be better
served by innovating and letting a good IP law firm handle the patent. This
will be expensive -- costs are at least $10K, and software patents typically
will cost more because prosecution (arguing with the USPTO why your invention
is patentable) will be longer. IMHO, the whole process is soul-sucking and why
I no longer practice patent law.

However, if you do wish to proceed the best play to start would be with the
official Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP):

<http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/mpep.htm>

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nostrademons
One of the curious things about the system is how infrequently large companies
actually own the patents that make up the core of their business. PageRank is
owned by Stanford, not by Google. The original Lisp Machine patents were owned
by MIT, not by Symbolics. Same with Akamai's core patents. The original ideas
behind EBay and online auctions were never patented, because Pierre Omidyar
had a day job and his employer probably would've owned it anyway.

I guess the takeaway for new entrepreneurs is to focus on making _money_ , not
patents. Because once you have money, you can hire good people, and then
you'll own the patents that _they_ produce. It's kinda odd that giant
corporations own huge patent portfolios, but almost never the patents on the
inventions that spawned the companies. I guess it makes sense when you
consider employment law and the need to earn a living, though. If it works for
Google, E-bay, Akamai, etc, it ought to be good enough for us.

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marcusestes
I'm sure glad this one got filed before the door closed on protected
innovation forever:
[http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=T2QKAAAAEBAJ&dq=P...](http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=T2QKAAAAEBAJ&dq=Patent+6368227)

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cookingrobot
That's awesome. But from the last page of the patent, it looks like it was re-
examined a month and a half later and all the claims were revoked.

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noonespecial
I'm pretty sure someone went to a playground and directly observed "skilled
practitioners of the art" independently discovering the methods. I think there
might have been some prior art on a few million 8mm film reels in people's
attics as well...

It would seem immediately apparent to most 2 handed children. I do find it
interesting that the patent missed out on the method of elevating one's ass by
pressing outward on both chains. Now that's technology.

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Hexstream
"If the court sides with these patent applicants it would open the door for
all sorts of “processes.”"

Patents are already granted for software and if software is not the
description of processes, I don't know what it is. So why say it "would open
the door"?...

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10ren
This is Bilski <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_re_Bilski>

<http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2009/06/bilski.html>

