Talk:WikiPatents
Legal aspects
editIt would be interesting to get some legal opinions on this idea. —Christiaan - ☎ 20:00, 23 Jan 2005
- I think that it could work. Published ideas are not patentable, so this should be enough as a defense of the "public domain" release, even without a specific license (which would be needed for the documentation itself of the idea, obviously). --Nemo 10:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)
Patent holder's thoughts
editI definitely support this idea - was about to propose it myself. I have several patents, mostly software, plus a lot of ideas that were patentable but the company decided not to pursue.
In general, I think software patents are pretty evil... but necessary if a company wants to defend itself. By publishing ideas in a public forum, the idea cannot be patented unless the patent was:
- Submitted within one year of the publication and
- Claimed to have been invented prior to the claim in the publication.
For instance, if I publish "Cool new search technique", and 6 months later someone else files a "Cool new search technique patent application" and claims to have come up with invention a year ago, they might be able to obtain the patent.
If I say in my "Cool" article that I came up with the idea 2 years ago, it is unlikely to affect the patentability of the idea unless I have documented proof. Either way, the submitted patent is still likely to go forward.
However, if anyone tries to submit "Cool new search techniques" more than 1 year after my publication, it will not be able to become a patent, and even if it did, the patent would be useless, unenforceable.
A patent wiki that was getting real traction could significantly impact the wacky state of software patents today. --MHart 18:11, 19 May 2005 (UTC)
External links
editBroken links
editThe links to WikiPatents and GlobalIdeasBank in the text are either broken or both servers went permanently down.
Nevertheless, such a "patent" wiki for defensive disclosures is (or was) an interesting idea... Unfortunately it has not gained much attention--Skorovs (talk) 14:28, 17 April 2014 (UTC)