In short, if it is likely that a competitor could re-invent or reverse-engineer your invention, you are better off
patenting it.
(1) On the one hand, the amount of
patenting activity has dramatically increased in recent years.
In fact, the company is concerned that there may be too much
patenting going on, Sleyster said.
(2.) American Intellectual Property Law Association, White Paper on
Patenting Business Methods (November 27, 2000).
Owen-Smith and Powell examine the consequences of geographic location and network position on
patenting by biotechnology firms in the Boston metropolitan area.
I think Pod-ner's interests were not based on
patenting a seed but in conquering a market that we had already made," he says.
Patenting a gene and releasing it into the public domain, as the National Institute of Health now usually does, harms no one.
THERE ARE TWO CLASSES OF OFFENDERS: COMPANIES trying to take advantage of the situation, seeing the patent land grab as a huge financial opportunity; and companies
patenting defensively, lest someone else take away their right to use their own inventions.
They hoped to ignite a public debate on the
patenting of life-forms and, if the patent was granted, block the creation of such chimeras.
Since the law specifies that a patent must be issued in the inventor's name and not in the name of the
patenting company, you can take advantage of the company's expertise without relinquishing any of your patent rights.
But GATT does not forbid the
patenting of human material, and Acosta's case before the Biodiversity Convention fared no better.