There is: Publishing it on a blog or in a scientific publication does that. At trial, your blog can be used to invalidate any patent claims that it predates.
That is supported by the article, but I would find it hard to imagine that an inventor who is trying to assert their rights against a much more well-resourced competitor would want things to go to trial. The article is pretty clear that filing first is what matters, not posting first, and first to file provides much, much, stronger evidence of your claim than a social media post.
Well there’s literally nothing you can do about that when every party has a right to a trial. How are conflicts supposed to be resolved if one party doesn’t want to go to court?
Some other, less expensive, less corrupt tribunal mechanism? I don't think GP is saying courts are bad because they're courts, they're saying US courts happen to be bad and expensive (which is not necessary).
How would that work legally? I’m pretty sure you can’t prevent someone from having to drag them to court with a tribunal, because the party you want to compel to do something has the right to a trial. If apple patents something you think you invented and published first, and you go to the tribunal, but apple says „no, I want a court order“, what is supposed to happen? I don’t think you can just remove the right to a trial (but I’m not a lawyer, so maybe that’s possible?).
Literally what do you expect them to post? Sable is a patent troll who very famously sued Cloudflare, and recently lost. What else could they possibly mean?
What their point is. I don't know who sable is, I'm not a mind reader and searching would just require me to make an assumption as to what their point would have been.
> Sable is a patent troll who very famously sued Cloudflare, and recently lost. What else could they possibly mean?
I don't think that's what the word famous means!
All things aside, I don't think pointing to one instance of this occurring is a great argument. Mind you that the invalidity issue went to a jury which means it escaped at least 3 rounds of determination by a judge, including a JMOL. Meaning that the judge felt there was enough evidence for a jury to be able to find the patents were valid. So, again, I don't think it's the slam-dunk some people seem to think.
No, posting things (for example on YouTube) counts very well as prior art and helps you invalidate (or limit the scope of) patents that appear later.
For a well-known case, consider Hangprinter, by Torbjorn Ludvigsen: a 3D printer without a frame. He had built it and documented the whole thing in YouTube videos. Then someone heard of the idea and went ahead and got a patent on it.
Torbjorn turned on the Internet for help, started a GoFundMe campaign to collect resources, and with the help of an experienced attorney, managed to have the patent limited so much that does not affect almost any other printer. The "experienced attorney" part was the most crucial, in my opinion, and he could not have chosen anyone better than the one he used.
I'm confused because my understanding is that "first to file" rather than "first to invent" is now basically universal.
My assumption was that tagline meant what to said, that it didn't matter when you create or publish something, that the government was open to giving a monopoly to whomever jumps through the legal hoops first.
...which has been a major load of salt I've carried around with me.
When you make a public disclosure (this includes things like "releasing a product that uses that method", fwiw), that starts a countdown clock [1]. When that clock reaches 0, that disclosure is now prior art, and anyone who files for a patent after that point is unable to get a patent for that method. Sufficiently old public disclosure invalidates any patent, independent of any filing system for patents.
First-to-file and first-to-invent are instead what happens if you get two different people who try to file for a patent before that point. In a first-to-invent system, there's an adjudication process that's going to look at all of the internal records to figure out who "invented" the process first (which, in the absence of evidence, is going to default to the first person to file anyways). In a first-to-file system, the first person to get their paperwork in the door is going to get the patent.
This doesn't mean that an unscrupulous person gets to look for public disclosures and rush their own patent applications to beat out the original inventor. You still need to demonstrate independent conception of the idea (although this would likely only be demonstrated in the context of an actual trial).
[1] I don't remember it's length, but I want to say it's like a year.
A public disclosure becomes prior art as of the date it is made public, with no "countdown clock" in most jurisdictions. For example, if you publish a blog article on July 1 describing your invention X, it can serve as prior art for any patent applications claiming invention X with an effective filing date after July 1.
There are nuances however with prior-filed patent applications. While such applications are not immediately public, once they are published (typically 18 months after filing), they become prior art retroactively, as of their filing date.
Even if a person independently conceives of a patentable idea, they shouldn't be able to get a patent for it if there exists prior art (although it obviously happens sometimes because the patent examination process isn't perfect).
> This doesn't mean that an unscrupulous person gets to look for public disclosures and rush their own patent applications to beat out the original inventor. You still need to demonstrate independent conception of the idea (although this would likely only be demonstrated in the context of an actual trial).
IPRs and PGRs can also be used for this, and are cheaper than doing it at a full-blown trial.
That one year grace period is specific to the US and does not apply in most other countries. So by publishing your invention before filing a patent application you create prior art that will stand in your way in most of the world.
These rules only apply when two people with the same invention both file a patent. If you publish something on Monday and someone files a patent (really - a provisional) for it on Tuesday, you are prior art to their patent and can be used to make it "obvious."
First to file determines who gets the patent, if anyone. Anything out in the public as verifiable prior art can invalidate all such patents, giving you (and your competitors) the freedom to operate.
