[Discuss] GE and Quirky partnering

[Marketply]

On April 17, 2013 at 2:29 PM Matt Maier <blueback09 at gmail.com> wrote:

Just to be clear, a patent literally means ownership of an idea.

 <http://www.uspto.gov/inventors/patents.jsp>

What can be patented – utility patents are provided for a new, nonobvious and
useful:

*
o Process
o Machine
o Article of manufacture
o Composition of matter
o Improvement of any of the above

What cannot be patented:

*
o Laws of nature
o Physical phenomena
o Abstract ideas
o Literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works (these can be Copyright
protected). Go to the Copyright Office
<http://www.uspto.gov/cgi-bin/exitconf/internet_exitconf.pl?target=lcweb.loc.gov/copyright/>
.
o Inventions which are:
+ Not useful (such as perpetual motion machines); or
+ Offensive to public morality

Invention must also be:

*
o Novel
o Nonobvious
o Adequately described or enabled (for one of ordinary skill in the art to make
and use the invention)
o Claimed by the inventor in clear and definite terms

Mere ideas aren't patentable.

Processes, machines, articles of manufacture, composition of matter, and
improvements to these are patentable.

In fact ideas by themselves would seem to get no protection under any law or IP
system anywhere in the world.

But as to my point about the opportunity for open technology, everything that
could patented according to the first part of the list can be made open or
public domain if the open inventions meet the criteria in the last part of the
list (novel, nonobvious details, adequately described or prototyped, described
clearly and definitely).

This is achievable by an open technology version of Quirky, if such a venture
would publish each invention and improvement of the community with sufficient
information and samples (video, diagrams, prototypes, etc) for anyone to
recreate it.

Marino Hernandez
just a founder of Marketply
203-429-4205
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.oshwa.org/pipermail/discuss/attachments/20130419/54d3b440/attachment.html>