Patents, a Sign of Knowledge?

A funny thing happened to me today, or should I say I witnessed a funny thing, in the way that a bystander is drawn into an accident had by two other individuals. The conversation centered on the filing of patents, and if patents were a sign of technical know how and ability, I will call the two individuals Jane and Bill. Jane was indicating that she had an idea that she thought was patentable. Bill on the other hand was saying that the patent process was broken because you did not have to have a working prototype anymore just the idea as borne out by successful application of theory. I am going to assume that no one knows what that means and explain it. In the old days, you had to have a working prototype of your invention to prove that it performs the task, which you claim it can do.

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However, as this prototyping became more expensive and people became better at explaining technical functions, the US Patent office allowed patents to be applied for by the showing of technically sound and engineering feasible theory. This was a groundbreaking move because it allowed patents to be applied for based on theory, some, which are far-fetched and some, which are spot-on. The problem is that because of the removal of the prototype requirement, some people are saying that patents should not be issued for theories, and that because they are, the patents are not valid as a sign of knowledge. The problem with that statement is that many of these theoretically based patents have indeed proven to be true to form. Jane then asked me how I feel about theory-based patents. I explained that I am not a good source to ask because I have both prototyped and theory based patents, and that any input from me would only prove to muddy the waters.

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Bill then asked how so, I said because I have seen both poor prototyping and poor theory-based patents. To this, I added that I have also seen excellent prototyping and excellent theory-based patents. I then tried to explain, the problem is the argument is usually not about technology and engineering as much as it is about building stuff. The problem boils down to the show of physical agility vs. mental ability. The patent process should be a show of what you can do, not how you can do it, some feel. This I think is the core of the problem, some people are stuck in the industrial, and technological ages. Today we are mid-ways through the information age, and the information age is more about how to do things vs. what you can do. Having said this Bill then asks me how many patents I have. I replied that I have 16 Patent Applications filed, 13 US Patents granted, two Patents pending, and one Patent Application abandoned. Jane and Bill then asked what does abandoned mean.

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I replied that it was the very thing they were talking about, a physical occurrence vs a mental exercise, where the Theory was sound, but the Application was questionable (see above picture, it tells the story). Bill then goes into his “You see that was what I was talking about” spiel. To which I replied that the patent was sound but the defense of the patent was not stable, even though the patent that was based on this patent went through and became a granted patent. Then I had to point out that the patent that went through had not been prototyped and the abandoned one had a working prototype. The reason for this was that the theoretical patent had more working points than the prototyped patent. This seemed to prove Jane’s point, when I had to interject that my longest patent granting wait, was on a theoretical patent, because the patent rested solely on the use and reaction of fulcrums doped with nano-powder in a magnetic field, with polarized ends. The theory proved to be feasible and thus had considerable merit. Therefore, both parties realized that I was indeed the wrong person to ask, because I knew both sides of the story and had participated on both sides of the story.

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Then, I explained that the process of developing a patent should be a sign that a person has some knowledge of the device, method, or process being created. That whether a patent is prototyped or based solely on a theory, there is room for both types of patents, whereas the most important thing is to design with the goal of using the technology in mind. So to you would be inventors, I hope that you understand that a patent is a wonderful thing to possess, because it says that you took the time to work out a problem to its foregone end and created a procedure, device, or method of solving that problem. I hope to hear about your adventures in patent filing.