

How PatentlyApple Harms Patents – Including Apple’s - axman6
http://blog.patentology.com.au/2013/03/how-patentlyapple-harms-patents.html?m=1

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axman6
The point made here is a very important one: those who are not trained
routinely completely misunderstand what a patent is actually a) describing and
b) actually claiming. It happens throughout the media on a daily basis, but is
particularly bad when a website like PatentlyApple, who many assume know what
they're talking about, get it so wrong.

Many people seem to believe that once a patent is applied for and/or granted,
no one can patent anything using that invention ever again. But 99.9% of all
patents are based on inventions already known, and those are not what is
claimed. What is claimed is the inventive step above what the prior art had
accomplished. If someone had a patent for 'a pen', a pen with a novel and
inventive tip would be perfectly acceptable. The inventor may need to licence
the use of the pen patent to commercialise their improvement, but there is
sighing stopping them from getting the patent to an improved pen. I could
probably go on for hours on the issue, but I won't unless asked. It's just so
depressing seeing the media making such a dog's breakfast of an issue that's
not inherently all that complex and leading to the devaluation of a system
that works quite well.

