Art Unwin wrote:
Wow ! You are way out of date with respect to PTO procedures on so
many things.
The main thing is patents have stopped going on for ever. The primary
change you have
that affects patents today is that patent request are pre printed for
the public before they ever reach an examiner.

Well not really. First of all an invention disclosure could go on forever
as I said because it all is based upon date of filing, or if nothing is filed,
date of first publication. If a person submits an invention disclosure to
an investor or prospective purchaser that is done with an agreement of
confidentiality, not publication.

Therefore an invention disclosure not being filed with the USPTO, or publicized
is not limited by the one year limitiation.

In the US, patent applications are published immediately. The USPTO has a
short period to reject applciations out of hand, and if they do not they
can be published as soon as the USPTO can, which I know is kind of vague.
However, you may request that the application is kept confidental until
18 months from date of application.

In the current environment, applications will be seen by an examiner in
around 18 months, so it may or may not be the case. It depends upon the
queue.

If I understand
correctly not receiving a patent leaves your request as a free for all
in terms of use.

Yes. However you have a year to appeal a final rejection.


The courts have now put more power in the examiners
hands and are less interested in cases challenging the aproved claims.

I can't say anything about that, I have never dealt with the courts.


For your interest antennas have come to the fore because Chip has sued
many cell phone manufacturers for knowingly using Fractal patents. It
will be interesting to see how the courts handle this in the light of
the many patent changes.

Yes. In this case it may depend more upon the quality of legal representation
and the authors of the original patent applications. If Chip's patent
applications were written well, he may be able to prove infringment. If they
were not, then the likelyhood of him getting anything is small.

It would depend, IMHO on Chip's lawyers making them feel he is being
vicitimized by the big bad cellular companies, or the companies making
them feel he is a crackpot inventor who patented something similar, but
not the close enough for them to pay him.

I've read an article foisted upon me about software patents that claimed they
were bad because judges were unable to understand them. IMHO bad judges do
not mean the whole system should be thrown out. I also expect that if the case
were to go before a jury, it would be next to impossible to convince them of
anything on a technical basis.

I was then told that I should read the paper's authors book, but to me
it seemed ironic (and stupid) to pay $22.50 and postage to be told that
my ideas should be free, while theirs were not.

You are now seeing more generic drugs over
the counter as drug patents are not being extended for minor changes.
Thus drug companies are using other methods to preserve their
interests via import rules to stop generic drugs coming in from other
Countries covered by the world patent office org of which the U.S. is
part. This does not include Peurto Rico where many U.S. drugs are
manufactured today

That's a special case. Most generic drugs come from Israel, which follows
FDA regulations and respects international patents, and India which does
not. Indira Gandi was presented the case that drug patents were racist,
because they prevented brown (Indian) people from buying drugs sold by
price-gouging white people (ICL in specific).

She allowed that the process could be patented, but not the product
itself, allowing Indian manufacturers to make generic drugs without
using the approved processes, and not subject to any quality control or
testing.

WIRED did an excelent article about it a few years ago. If you want more
information, I suggest you look it up.

As for Puerto Rico, it is part of the US, and since the 1970's has
become a haven for drug manufacturers because of the low taxes. The FDA
was (is?) loath to approve drugs which they can not supervise the
manufacture of, which they can do in Peurto Rico, but not in other countries.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM