Re: Patents
Richard Knoppow (dickburk@ix.netcom.com)
Tue, 19 May 1998 12:42:22 -0700
At 12:58 PM 5/19/98 -0600, Bob_Maxey@mtn.3com.com wrote:
>>>Patents are not confidential documents. They are publically
>available through the patent office.
>
>They have to be public by Law, or one could never determine if their patent
>infringes on another.
>
>RM
>
>
>
I think it is important to separate patents from trade secrets. Both are
protected legally but the protection is different.
The purpose of the patent system is to encourage the making of new
processes and knowledge public by giving the inventor a period of monopoly
on it during which he/she can profit from the work. After 17 years
whatever is covered becomes public property.
Trade secrets can be protected for any length of time but there is no
protection against someone else discovering it independantly. The legal
protections of trade secrets are aimed at preventing someone who has been
entrusted with the knowledge using it for the benefit of someone other than
the original holder of the knowledge. Thus, such things as the formula for
Coca-Cola have been kept secred, and protected, for generations rather than
the seventeed years of a patent.
The problem with a trade-secret is that there is no protection against
someone simply figguring out what is being done or discovering it in the
process of trying to solve a particular problem. As long as that person
had no direct knowledge of the secret process and found the knowledge
independantly, he/she can use it freely.
I am sure there many complications to this, as there tend to be with any
legal issue, and I am not a lawyer or legal expert, but the above is
accurate in overall terms.
----
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles,Ca.
dickburk@ix.netcom.com