On 20 Jun, 13:02, Jim Lux wrote:
JIMMIE wrote:

I also assume they know their business, I also assume that if they
tested the antenna they actually collected qualitative information if
they knew their business. It seems obvious to me that this data was
intentionally left out . Deception by ommission.

If the inventor does not want these types of assumptions being made
then he should provide all information to clarify the issue.

Jimmie

Not necessarily. Patents are a strategic weapon in the technology
business. Your best bet is to have your patent have a sort of vague
title and have text that isn't likely to show up in a cursory search
(harder to do these days, since the PTO's search engine works quite
well). You'd have just enough detail in the disclosure to convince the
examiner to grant the patent, and have lots of claims that cover a lot
of various schemes. Then, if someone else builds something that covers
the same general application, there's a high probability that your
patent "might" be infringed, or, more importantly, that there's a
possibility. If they are already in manufacturing (i.e. have invested
significant dollars in the product), then it's easy to negotiate a
license and royalty, just to lay to rest the risk that you might file
suit and force them to stop mfr and distribution.

The LAST thing you want is enough detail to let someone figure out how
to design around your patent or to unambiguously determine that their
new product isn't infringing. You WANT vagueness, because from
vagueness comes liability uncertainty, and the elimination of that
uncertainty has definite business value.

The other reason to build a patent portfolio is that it allows you to
cross license other patents that you might need to infringe to build
your device. Imagine if A has a patent on female screw threads and B
has a patent on male screw threads. A could make nuts, but not bolts;
and B can make bolts, but not nuts. However, if A and B agree to
license each others patents, then between them, they can control the nut
and bolt market, without money needing to change hands. Again,
vagueness works to your advantage here.

Go look up "submarine patent" for more details on how this works.

Glad you wrote that Jim. A lot of people have no real idea of how
the patent idea is used in commerce or that the claims are the
most important part so at to protect in the event of new
advances in science.When competing for contracts it is
important to protect your designs even tho trivial incase
the contract is put out again.

I do have a question tho
and that is with respect to trade secrets/utility patents.
If a person decides not to patent and the idea is later
deciphered does that prevent a patent issued to either
party? With respect to submarines I thought the last
changes to patent law now prevents this.
Another posting stated that it is for the courts to determine
if a patent was authentic yet I read that the courts have now
stated that they are not in the game of overuling the
patent office any more.
Art