[nylug-talk] Employer Pattent Rights

[Joshua Zeidner]

On 2/2/07, Tom Moran <tom1116 at optonline.net> wrote:
> It's in your best interests to consult an attorney.

   This is not legal advice.  I am not an attorney.

   Your employer has no default rights over your invention.  If you
had signed anything in the form of NDA, NCA, Trade Secret agreement,
etc. then you may be infringing on those agreements by filing for a
patent.  I cannot tell you how your violation of the said agreements
would effect the status of a patent.

    Judging by the sophistication of your query, I am assuming that
you have never really worked with the US patent system before.  I can
tell you that many of the generally assumed ideas concerning the
opportunities the patent system affords for individual 'inventors'
have no grounding in the reality of today.  Patents are expensive to
develop and expensive to protect in court, and only really make fiscal
sense for large companies with a staff of patent lawyers.  Even the
preliminary ground you must cover of prior art search can be quite a
daunting task, especially if your invention is in computer science.
For example, I am developing an application involving graph
visualization, and it so happens that IBM has a patent on a very
general and obvious( in my view ) method of manipulating graphs in a
GUI.

  http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5515487.html

  These points are an indication of some serious problems with our
current patent system and who is actually gaining from it's support.
These issues  are compounded even further by the glaring problems of
international patent protection and the fact that I can host my
invention anywhere in the world for little or no additional cost.
Currently, large lobbying groups are working furiously to tighten
international trade agreements and close these loopholes as well( WIPO
).  You will pay to enforce these new agreements of course.  The EU
had oscillated on its stance towards software patents, and I believe
that currently the commissions involved are /not in favor/ of allowing
software patents in the EU.  How large software companies respond to
this is anyone's guess.  Lobbying groups backed by Microsoft
repeatedly raise this issue in the EU despite it being a considered a
closed case time and time again.  In addition there is the new class
of "Business Method Patents" which are an entirely new form of IP
altogether, which seriously undermine the free market basis upon which
our country was built.  These BMPs allow for the ownership of business
ideas whose implementation can take place in third world countries
without risk of domestic competition.

  Clinton did make the patent system a bit more accessible for the
average person with the creation of 'provisional patents' which are
inexpensive to maintain and basically act as a placeholder for you if
you do manage to develop the invention.  They are very inexpensive to
file for.  Whenever you encounter the term 'patent pending' this
refers to a provisional patent.  The expire within a certain time
frame and the filer is expected to file for a full patent application
within a certain interval.  They offer you evidence in court of prior
art against patents that are filed for similar ideas.

  I would think that, in general, the idea of patenting and profiting
from a computer related invention is totally infeasible for an
individual of modest means.

  -jmz


>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nylug-talk-bounces+tom1116=optonline.net at nylug.org
> [mailto:nylug-talk-bounces+tom1116=optonline.net at nylug.org] On Behalf Of
> Andrew Pliszka
> Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 3:49 PM
> To: NYLUG Technical Discussion
> Subject: [nylug-talk] Employer Pattent Rights
>
> Hi,
>
> I would like to apply for a patent. Does anyone have some experience
> with Employer Patent issues? I work for Internet company, and the patent
> will be related to Internet applications.
>
> Thanks
> Andrew
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( 602 ) 490 8006
jjzeidner at gmail.com