Yeti SB66 = Decathlon Rockrider?

VWsurfbum

stubs wrote:

Someone needs to invent suspension that works via a ringpiece sensor. When the trail gets tough and your ringpiece starts to twitch the suspension gets longer and has more sag. When the nasty stuff has gone and your ring stops twitching it can revert back to XC standard.

Well in that case we've just stumbled on where to keep the battery pack

The Rookie

Patenting something in most parts of the world requires you to do some work to prove it is at least novel, that does not of course mean it is novel, or that it is actually patentable, that will frequantly only be tested in court and the 'patent' found to be either meaningful or just a scrap of paper.

Patenting things in the USA is very different, you can apply for and be granted a patent just by going through the process of submisison, many things are patented that would be laughed out of court should you try and claim a breach, on the other hand many overseas companies will just choose to ignore the US market, as proving a patent is meaningless often will cost you more than you gain by doing so.

To be clear, having a patent is menaingless in itself, to enforce it you have to take someone using the 'innovation' to court where they have the opportunity to prove your patent should never have been granted, or that the patent is meaningless. I have been involved over the years in a few patent submissions.

Simon

raggedstone

Patenting something in most parts of the world requires you to do some work to prove it is at least novel, that does not of course mean it is novel, or that it is actually patentable, that will frequantly only be tested in court and the 'patent' found to be either meaningful or just a scrap of paper.

Patenting things in the USA is very different, you can apply for and be granted a patent just by going through the process of submisison, many things are patented that would be laughed out of court should you try and claim a breach, on the other hand many overseas companies will just choose to ignore the US market, as proving a patent is meaningless often will cost you more than you gain by doing so.

To be clear, having a patent is menaingless in itself, to enforce it you have to take someone using the 'innovation' to court where they have the opportunity to prove your patent should never have been granted, or that the patent is meaningless. I have been involved over the years in a few patent submissions.

Simon

I think that you might have got the wrong impression from your patent submissions. The USA have a substantive examination process which is basically very similar to that which operates in Europe (under the European Patent Convention) and most other countries. You file your patent application, the intellectual property office (USPTO) do a search to find relevant prior art (generally anything known before you filed the application), then they examine your application to determine if there is anything inventive (in the claims) over what they found in the search.

The quality of the search is pretty decent from the US, and their rules require that you notify them of anything relevant that another office turns up (e.g. the European Patent Office).

The US have different rules on what is patentable subject matter (meaning that methods of doing business and computer programs are fair game).

There are a few countries that let you get a patent without substantive examination (e.g. France), but the US is not one of them.

You are also right in saying that often the real test of a patent is in court. Obviously this is down to the resources available to the examiners in the national/regional offices vs the resources avaialable in a full blown legal dispute. More resources in examination would mean a more expensive process, arguably pushing it out of the reach for SMEs, so it's not trivial to strike the right balance.

compositepro

The legal engineering is whats a pain in the arse these days not design or engineering its whos got the most money nothing more nothing less