Patent on public domain information? I covered this patent in my books

Question

https://patents.google.com/patent/CN106577131A/en?q=(method+for+quickly+growing+arborsculpture+by+grafting+large+branches+togther)&oq=method+for+quickly+growing+arborsculpture+by+grafting+large+branches+togther++

My books are "How to grow a chair" 1995 Reames-Dlebol and Arborsculpture solution for a small planet 2005 I cover this chinese patente that was recently granted. I thought I put the information into the public domain. Is the patent good?

Answer 1

I don't have access to your books and don't know Chinese so I can only rely on Google's translation of the Chinese Patent's text. What I can say is that your books predate the filing of the patent so thus represent potential prior art. People often over estimate the extent of a patent. The claims define what is protected. Long, complicated claims are generally fairly narrow since one would have to implement each and every step in the claim to infringe. Claim one of the cited patent (quoted below) is exceptionally long with eight fairly extensive steps. All the other claims are dependent on claim 1 so someone would have to infringe on claim 1 to infringe the patent.

Again, I do not have access to your books, but anything you describe in them likely became unpatentable after their publication. A specific refinement to what you describe could potentially be patentable. In any case, I believe the patent doesn't attempt to patent chairs formed by shaping trees in general. This Wikipedia article cites several examples that well predate even your books.

1. a kind of preparation method with crown umbrella tree chair, it is characterised in that：The chair leg of the tree chair is made up of four trees trunk, The planting location of four trees is in quadrangle, and during making, prefabricated seat mould, bracing frame, the tree chair preparation method with tree crown includes Following steps： 1), connected using rope in four chair leg height and positions, prefabricated seat mould is set thereon； 2), in four chair leg trees, each trunk in chair leg height and position, stay respectively two tree buds, tree bud present position towards On the direction of adjacent chair leg, tree bud grows in opposite directions in the horizontal direction of four legs； 3), leave two tree bud each chair leg trunk eye top 0.2-3cm place distinguish partial application, cutting-in to xylem, Promote to set bud and sprout, homing tree bud is allowed between trunk to along horizontal direction to two anyhow adjacent trunk directions growths Interconnect, constitute fore-and-aft direction chair leg connection strap and left and right directions chair leg connection strap； 4) multiple Propagating Tree buds backward or upwards, are reserved respectively at a certain distance on left and right directions chair leg connection strap, wherein, Bud is set before tree chair on left and right directions chair leg connection strap to grow backward, base connection strip is formed, behind the connection of left and right directions chair leg Upper tree bud grows up, and forms backrest connection strap, and a deep knife at above-mentioned multiple eye top 0.2-3cm, up to xylem, makes Tree bud growth； 5), set four legs of chair respectively in chair leg height and position to front curve horizontal by 30-60 ° of angle, the is formed respectively One bend, at the first bend 10-30cm, respectively before and after the left and right sides leg formed plane in, then backward bending with Horizontal plane forms respectively the bend of left and right sides second in 30-60 ° of angle, makes the second bend of the left and right sides along seat mould Top edge rearward grows, and forms arcuation tree chair top edge, and tree chair top edge crosses in chair back side centre position； 6) tree bud is stayed at a certain distance on the fore-and-aft direction chair leg connection strap for, setting chair, deep one at the 0.2-3cm of eye top Knife, depth reaches xylem, meanwhile, in both sides second, bend arranges downward extension branch by identical spacing number, forms upper and lower Direction connection strap, meets position respectively in left and right sides connection strap above-below direction, by meet both be whittled into relative wedge shape, and Binding, becomes the two and combines together； 7), above-mentioned steps 5）Tree chair top edge makes branch mutually wind after chair back side centre position is intersecting, carries out at by branch Reason so as to bend to vertically upward and vertical-growth, form vertical trunk, at vertical trunk height is for 1.5m-2m, then It is secondary to carry out by branch process so as to bend forwards, form tree crown, when forming tree crown, bracing frame is supported on into lower section, allow tree crown to give birth to It is long, corrected accordingly and pruned according to shape of tree-crown； 8）, tree chair formed after remove seat mould, after tree crown is formed, remove bracing frame.