4
A provisional (or a non provisional) allows you to claim priority to it. That means, any application validly claiming priority in the period of one year after the filing will be assumed to have the same filing date as the priority document.
(I'm talking about a first and second application, if you want to claim priority to an application that is already ...
3
The letter from the lawyer is very logical and doesn't at all hint that they believe they are infringing anything. It just says that they can't evaluate your assertion that they are infringing since your application is not visible to the public and that whatever claims you might have in that application have not been granted. Of course, only a granted claim ...
3
If you believe you have publicly disclosed your invention or that it may become publicly disclosed, you should probably file a provisional patent application. Note this is different than what the other current answer says. A provisional application is not a full application, but will secure your rights for one year while you continue to develop and improve ...
2
There are two issues here:
Is your disclosure prior art?
Is there a reasonable risk of theft?
Is your disclosure prior art?
Maybe.
If you have made your invention available to the public, your invention would no longer be novel (35 USC 102(a)(1)). This would prevent you getting a patent (except for the grace period, see below).
Since you have sought ...
2
Disclosures made by the inventor less than 1 year before the effective filing date is not prior art in the US (35 USC § 102(b)(1)). Accordingly, as long as the effective filing date (which can be the date of filing a provisional, where the benefit of the provisional is validly claimed in a subsequent non-provisional) is less than 1 year after such a ...
1
You must avoid public disclosure of your idea before filing a patent application. The usual method of doing this when talking to potential investors is a confidentiality agreement. Have a confidentiality agreement drafted and have both parties sign before disclosure.
1
If the first outside presentation was more than a year ago and you didn't at least say - "this is my confidential information, please keep it to yourselves", it would most likely be considered, in the words of 35 USC 102, "available to the public" and therefore not patentable in the U.S. As a generalization, most places in the world do not have a grace ...
1
For patent attorneys and agents who you have engaged, any disclosures you make to them are confidential and privileged. They would not be able to make any of the matter public (at the risk of losing their licence to practice). You should therefore feel quite comfortable disclosing matter to your attorney/agent.
However, they would likely want to have ...
1
To assess the pros and cons of going with
a patent requires you to understand the economics of your market. I'm going to assume you are thinking people will want to build experimental VTOL aircraft. My guess is there are relatively few people that want to do the design work. For this reason, I doubt you can get much income from selling software. In addition,...
1
From EPO perspective, your question boils down to "when are private discussions considered public"? In general, the information is regarded as having been made public if even just one single member of the public is in a position to gain access to it and understand it, and if there is no obligation to maintain secrecy. You can find a lot more here:
http://www....
1
Pre AIA MPEP (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure) states:
https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/mpep/s2133.html
Likewise, there may be a nonpublic, e.g., “secret,” sale or offer to sell an invention which nevertheless constitutes a statutory bar. Hobbs v.United States, 451 F.2d 849, 859-60, 171 USPQ 713, 720 (5th Cir. 1971).
In similar fashion, not ...
1
The answer is found in MPEP 2128 [R-08.2017]. In summary, yes your web-page counts as a printed publication if any "interested person" could have accessed your content without a confidentiality agreement. One common example of printed publication similar to your situation is a thesis published in a university library where no one has read the thesis but any ...
1
Update #2: Under the scenario described above, when Company B filed post-AIA, "first inventor to file" a prior, published patent application from Company A is not prior art under 102(B)(2)(b) from what I gather:
"(2) DISCLOSURES APPEARING IN APPLICATIONS AND PATENTS.—A disclosure shall not be prior art to a claimed invention under subsection (a)(2) if—
(B) ...
1
As I understand it, publication of a book outlining the details of what is claimed in the patent more than a year prior to the patent being applied for constitutes public disclosure of the information and therefore the information is no longer patentable. As far as I am aware, all of the patent claims have been disclosed already in their prior book ...
1
Yes, a standard Non-Disclosure Agreement is typically enough to protect your idea. However, NDA's do have time limits, and once they expire they offer no protection at all. A good option in this case is to prepare a Provisional Patent Application, which, once filed, will give you a full year to publish your full Application and will also serve to clearly ...
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