Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 06 Oct 2000 12:52:05 -0600 | From | "Jeff V. Merkey" <> | Subject | Re: Tux 2 patents |
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And you only get the year of protection **IF** you have filed a provisional patent application, which expires 12 months after it's issued. You must then file a non-provisional patent application before the year runs out, or you cannot patent the techniques.
Jeff
Marty Fouts wrote: > > IANAL; this is not legal advice. > > The 'one year' you are referring to is from 'disclosure', not from released > product. "disclosure" in this case is a legal term-of-art. Further, there > is a difference between US and European Union patent law, in that, IIRC, EU > law requires patent application before _public_ disclosure. In effect, > "disclosure" means revealing the idea to anyone, inside your organization or > out, but there are all sorts of corner cases in the law. > > Nolo Press had a good book that discusses copyright and patent law, although > they may not have had the chance to update it to reflect recent changes. > > In any event, if you are serious about either getting or trying to overturn > a patent, you need to see a lawyer specializing in patent law, because case > law frequently changes the nuances in this area. > > -----Original Message----- > From: jesse [mailto:jesse@wirex.com] > Sent: Friday, October 06, 2000 10:53 AM > To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > Subject: Re: Tux 2 patents > > On Fri, Oct 06, 2000 at 09:13:25AM +0200, Daniel Phillips wrote: > > > Once you use the technique and it's documented as clear by a patent > > > lawyer, it will be safe for you to use forever, particularly if it's > > > in the public domain. This is winning.... > > > > This is good to know, but what I was talking about is taking it *out of > > the closed source* domain. The idea is to take our best ideas out of > > the closed source domain. After a few years of doing that, it's my > > guess that the evil software patent system would keel over and die. > > IANAL, but I believe that once you've implemented a method in a released > product, you have only one year to file the patents for it. If you don't > file patents for it within this time period, it becomes public domain. I > think it would be possible to invalidate their patents, but I don't think > it would be possible to get your own patent on it after the fact and refuse > to let them use it. > > -Jesse > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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