Introduction

Question 1

Who infringes a patent?

Answer 1

anyone who makes, uses, or sells the invention (whether they copied from the inventor or developed the product or process independently).

Question 2

Why do people seek patents? (8)

Answer 2

1. Market power
2. Licensing
3. Investors
4. Reputation
5. Marketing
6. Defense
7. Peacock’s tail
8. Attribution

Question 3

What was the first Patent Act?

Answer 3

The Patent Act of 1952

Question 4

What is the benefit with a patent system over a prize system?

Answer 4

prize systems are vulnerable to the main decision maker. Patent system lets people do anything, and then get exclusive right to develop it

Question 5

What is wrong with the enablement story?

Answer 5

it’s not really reflective; companies aren’t out there reading every new patent

Question 6

What are the four categories of patents? What are the two main categories?

Answer 6

1. process
2. machine
3. manufacture
4. composition of matter
5. products (2, 3, 4 of above)
6. processes

Question 7

What are two ways to think of processes?

Answer 7

1. a method for “making something” (“a method for making high-strength polymer fabric”)
2. a method for “using something” (“a method for controlling weeds near rice plants by applying a specific chemical compound”)
3. a method for “doing something” (administering a mutual fund or creating an anti-gravity illusion)

Question 8

How do product and process patents interact? How do people decide which to get?

Answer 8

An inventor may invent a process, a product, or both. For example, an inventor may develop a new manufacturing process that he uses to build a new type of chair. He might then seek both a process patent on the manufacturing process and a product patent on the chair. If others use his process to build couches or tables, they potentially infringe the process patent. Had the inventor simply patented the chair, others would have been free to use the process as long as they did not produce a product that infringed the chair patent. Conversely, if someone devises a different process for producing the chair, she would not infringe the process patent— but she would infringe the product patent. Inventor can cover both the process and product in a single patent application, but must have separate claims.

Question 9

What is a “use” patent?

Answer 9

a common type of process patent - a new use for an existing product. For example, suppose a drug is known to be useful for treating high blood pressure in humans. A pharmaceutical company then discovers that the drug is useful in treating cold symptoms. Even if the product itself is not new— and even if it had been invented by someone else— a pharmaceutical company could patent the new use as a new process.