

Patent Program ideas from SCIFI? - mark_ellul

If you got an idea for a software program from a SCI-FI book, and you create that program. Would you be able to patent it?
======
cperciva
Depends exactly what you mean by "got an idea ... from a sci-fi book". If you
mean "copied directly from a sci-fi book", you shouldn't be able to patent it
-- the USPTO has accepted science fiction as prior art in the past.
(Naturally, it's only prior art if it describes the _method_ \-- Star Trek
transporters aren't prior art for anything, because the mechanisms behind how
they work were never specified.)

The most famous example of fiction being cited as prior art is probably the
method of raising a sunken ship by filling it with ping pong balls, where a
1949 Donald Duck cartoon was cited.

