From: berryh@huey.udel.edu (John Berryhill, Ph.D.)
Newsgroups: misc.legal.computing
Subject: Re: Patent info request
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:36:40 GMT
Distribution: misc
Organization: little scraps of paper, mostly

Carl, your statement was that you couldn't imagine what you OR Bruce
said that caused me to write the "step one" line in my post.  You
probably do enough database searching to know what "or" means.

And yes, the group is about a lot of things.  The original question,
however, was about getting a patent - which is among the tiny miniscule
and trivially unimportant things a patent agent may do.  But it did
happen to be responsive to the question.  God forbid that anybody should
get the wrong impression from my mentioning it.  In my darkened understanding
I must have missed the part where the guy asked about copyrights,
trademarks, validity, and infringement.

I'm new to this group and maybe there should be a FAQ about the application
procedure.  Sure, the answer to every question could be "get a lawyer."
But that's not terribly informative.  I'll be willing to bet, on the basis
of e-mail that I've gotten though, that it's the first time a lot of people
ever heard of patent agents.

I am neither a lawyer nor am I a patent agent.  I am, however, a patentee
who is rather pointedly aware of the fact that among the people one may
go to in order to obtain assistance in preparing a patent application,
all the litigation experience in the world is not going to help if you
end up with someone who is simply not able to understand your invention.

By all means, get someone who can adequately claim your invention.  Get
someone who can draft responses while avoiding undue estoppels.  Get
someone who won't make inadvertent admissions of prior art.  Get someone
who doesn't unduly limit the equivalents listed in the spec.  But above
all else, get someone who understands the invention.

Back on the question at hand, if we've sufficiently ungored everyone's
oxen, if you have an idea for an invention, there are places you can
go if you don't have a lot of money or if you can't get a free consultation.
There are non-profit groups which help inventors to help themselves, one
of which is the American Society of Inventors (the address of which I'll
post if anyone wants it and I can find where I've got it buried).
The ASI is NOT one of those 900-number "invention development" operations
which you've seen on matchbook covers.  For-profit invention developers
tend to be shady operations more often than not, and, as Carl will be
more than happy to tell you, are very limited in the services that they
may provide and the kinds of financial arrangemts that they may make with
patent attorneys or agents.

Attorneys in other fields find it rather odd, but patent attorneys ARE
allowed to accept a financial interest in the patent as payment for
their services.  I've never run into one that did, but its worth a shot.

There are also several books avalable on the subject.  _Patent It
Yourself_ is useful in some respects, but I wouldn't recommend actually
tring to obtain a patent after just reading that book.  The Practising
Law Institute in NYC has several good titles including _The Patent
Application Handbook_ and _How to Write a Patent Application_.  I mention
these titles because, although you are better off getting a professional,
the more you know, the more effectively you can work with that professional
in obtaining a decent patent, making informed decisions, and saving
yourself money.
-- 
                                                John Berryhill, Ph.D.
Newsgroups: misc.legal.computing,misc.int.property,comp.software-eng