Fictional prior art...?
 

I'm curious if fictional prior art counts?

For example in Start Trek, they have the particle beam or whatever it is that beams people up to the ship or down to the planet.

Under current patent law, could someone at a later date patent the process of beaming people (or items) around with a particle beam with that fictional prior art out there?

Basically, the first step and the last step are shown (A and D.. loading people onto the pad, the particle beam & them arriving at the destination) but B & C are a mystery (that part about HOW the particle beams actually moves matter around) & later discovered by a real company wanting to patent the whole process.. including the A & D, which they got from Start Trek.

:glugglug


I'm just wondering if I can also be looking around in fictional sources for certain process as well.

yeeeep, northern californias got the good weed, this post is proof.

:smokin

:GFYBand

:rasta :rainfro :stoned

Sure someone could patent the process.. if that someone actually invented a working model of the process.

Star Trek folks couldn't say they had the process first because they didn't have an actual process.. just a studio with smoke & mirrors..

Then... you could become a lawyer, join a lawyer club, buy the patent from the holder and charge everyone using the process, and claim that it includes:

1. Beaming an individual in real time; leaving point (a) and arriving at point (b) in full form.

2. Beaming an individual in compressed form from point (a), then storing said individual in a 'ziplock limbo storage container' until such time as you wish to have said individual appear.

3. Beaming could include beaming of the full being, or just the voice.

4. Anyone possessing the phone number of a company/individual
using the beam machine could also be charged an amount determined by the patent holder.


So clean out your garage, cover the windows, go buy some electronics kits and get to work!!

Does acacia have a business method patent or are they claiming actual technical specifics?

If they are just claiming a business method, I would think that even fictional prior art should be relevant.

How can you claim you thought of the whole "idea" for online video, if it was shown in movies for decades?

If you claim you have made a specific technical process, that's a different story.

Acacia can't claim that they did anything other than buy an existing patent. They invented nothing, created nothing, thought of nothing.. other than trying to make money from something they had nothing to do with..

IMO, the ability to buy a patent (a document for the purpose of protecting inventions/inventors) throws the entire idea and purpose of a patent out the window..

If you didn't invent anything, why should you be protected for your invention?? Kinda silly...

I asked because I'm out on the prowl for prior art again...

After listening to the D-Money show archive with JMM I realize that there are a ton of prior Mechinisims but not as many well defined processes.

That sort of sucks... but all you need is one, and there's still quite a few good ones :thumbsup

The more people around the world that are looking for prior art, the better. It could be some Iranian scientist or Indian school project, or some other foreign language paper published anywhere in the world that will totally invalidate these ridiculous claims.

Everyone should do what they can to help, including donating to the industry group.

Thanks for ruining it for me.

Wasn´t there a lawsuit between Microsoft and Apple about the rights of using a graphical interface? Apple claimed to have the patent for the use of windows (rectangular or any other shape) for displaying data on a screen and useing a mouse for input?

http://www.freibrunlaw.com/articles/articl12.htm

Ohoh, you're not aware of rule number one and two of that club are you?

Seriously, prior art is most likely not to be found in fiction. The only way I could see that being possible would be for a story line to actually include the specifics of a process in enough detail that someone could've actually implemented the invention.

In patents, the specifics are called "claims" and they are the most important part, much more so than the description of what the invention does. That's because these "claims" detail exactly how the invention obtains it's results.

When you examine a patent, the claims are the numbered items within it. You must become familiar with them because for prior art to exist, someone has to have published the claims before the application for the patent was made.

just an interesting little known fact here but scientists have actually succeeded in transporting a single electron from one location to another in star trek fashion. I know that an electron is a far cry from a human but it is very interesting anyway and has taken decades of research to achieve.

I'm sorry I don't have a link for you, we discussed this in my wave mechanics course briefly when my prof brought a paper in from some science journal.

Technical specifics: http://www.acaciaresearch.com/dmt/dm...tlpatents.html

Go here to look them up: http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm

I think in the end that is what it will boil down to. Their broad claims will become alot more specific and defined. Probably revolving around streaming video.

The double/triple/quadruple dipping is pure bs though...

ie,

they demand license from XYZ Content Streamers,
they license to XYZ Content streamers PAYSITE clients,
they license to XYZ Content streamers PAYSITES AFFILIATES
they license to XYZ Content streamers PAYSITES AFFILIATES Advertisers (TGP's, brokers, people linking to the affiliates movies galleries)

That's sort of nuts you know?

Here's a good link for anyone wanting to learn more: Prior Art Tutorial

That's an important part of this. Someone objective has to establish what Acacia claims to own.

Otherwise, you could patent a bolt, and claim you have a patent on all metal, all machines, anything that uses a bolt. You could just as easily have a tradmark on "dogfart" and claim you own the exclusive rights to the words "dog" and "fart". You could claim anything you want, until someone stepped in and stopped you.

Their patents, which should be overturned, even if they somehow hold onto them for a while, almost certainly don't cover everything that Acacia says they do.

Has any objective third party yet tried to define what exactly the claimed Acacia patents really cover? Not what Acacia says, because they will probably say anything that suits their interests, but what they would actually specifically apply to?

What What Can Be Used As Prior Art For Invalidating A Patent?

In essence, any publication, in any language, located anywhere in the world is valid prior art for invalidating a U.S. Patent. One copy of a thesis, written in the Chinese language and stored on a dusty shelf of the Beijing University Library will invalidate any and all U.S. patents that were filed one year after that thesis was published and that claims as an invention ANY of the subject matter that was disclosed in that thesis.
A publication can be, among other things: a thesis, a PHD dissertation, a journal article, a text book, a newspaper article, a patent, a home work assignment, a white paper, written materials handed out during a presentation, a product, or a product brochure.

A publication is NOT: your recollection of what someone once said, someone's recollection of what they themselves once said, a trade secret, or a confidential company memo. The upshot is that prior art must be publicly available, and it must be printed (or a physical object).



If you come up with anything on your digs, send it to [email protected]

:thumbsup

When you come across something in a library (the most likely place to look, especially at universities), ask the librarian how to properly write the citation of the work. If the cite is written properly, then they'll be able retreive a copy of it to study. Oh, and if it's some obscure publication, like a student's master thesis, be sure to tell them which library has the copy, too!

Also, use the librarian to help us! Tell her what you're looking for and ask for suggestions on how to go about finding it and where to look. You know the date of the publication already, any year before 1992. You know it's going to be in someone's speach, thesis or article that covered computor networking and multimedia.

Mmmm, might want to leave out the part about being a porn lord of the internet though... :)

I was going to mention about the transporting of light from one place to another.
.http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR11935.html
It didn't exactly transport the photon, but it made a replication of the light. I think they said it will be another 2 or 3 decades before they will be able to transport something living. Looks like prior art if someone wanted a patented on it.

I could get a patented on the time machine, but that would not be invented in the next 20 years if it ever did get invented.

But then someone would built it and go back in time a day before you filed & file their own.

:1orglaugh

Odds are the Patent has already been issued for particle transference technologies.

Infact scientists have already dabbled with it and so far they are capable of transferring light from one side of the earth to the other.

Oops just a little to late LOL!
Refresh works:)

icedemon there it is:) Nice find, I read about the tech in Science digest or somthing just like 6 months ago:)

To go along with 5eyes tutorila on prior art tutorial, I found this article that lets those of us that didn't have a clue about this stuff before learn about patents and the process of making a claim etc...


http://www.hightech-iplaw.com/leswibar2003.pdf


From what I have read, there are three options here:

a) Everybody settles and pays the fees
b) We find prior art and get the patent dissolved
c) The courts through the patent out


Option (b) and (c) are spendy to prove and take time. According to that article, even if we find Prior Art it will cost a lot of money.

Another thing in that article that I found helpful is that is says it is ok to ask for donations to fight a patent claim, so the idea of putting a link on your sites asking for paypal donations is not such a bad idea after all.

Don't say anything bad against the patent holder or they can sue your asses :2 cents:


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