Problem: Some inventions still slip into obscurity
Solution: Publish all provisional and abandoned patents after 10 years.
General Background:
The patent system is a marvelous institution. It provides a contract between the inventor and the state that says “If you give me a state-enforced monopoly for a couple decades, I will give my invention to humanity from then on. Also, I’ll write up the idea in sufficient detail that others can replicate and improve upon it.” This replaces the secrets of manufacture of the ancient world where advanced nautical instruments, which has lost many inventions.
The patent system is used in almost every country in the world. This creates a “land-grab” of inventions that companies seek to exploit. The “land-grab” has been on-going for over a century. A long term effect is that many previously amazing ideas are in the public domain. Zippers, microwave ovens, LEDs, computer components, encryption schemes, and other advances march into the free public domain at a predictable rate. Everything that was manufactured twenty five years ago can be made without infringing on patents.
About Provisional and Abandoned Patents:
Inventions, the creations of humans, are still lost and forgotten when a patent fails to issue. Provisional patents are partially described patents used to save the date of invention, and are destroyed unless a full patent is written within a year. Abandoned patents are patents where a patent is requested (filed), but never issued. Abandoned patents fail to issue when the company does not wish to pay the issue fees or has gone bankrupt; where the company loses interest; where the patent examiner raises sustainable rejections; and where the company has decided to keep the technology as a trade secret. The last case is rare: companies can evaluate if a trade secret is the best protection.
Unless the pending patent is made public, which is common for international patents, the information and invention are lost to the public interest forever. We should publish these provisional and abandoned patents to improve the public welfare. The publication does constitute a small tax on the inventors: one could not file a provisional patent and later decide to make the item a Trade Secret. This tax goes near zero if the provisional and abandoned patents are only made public after a decade. Even a delay of 17 years, the term of most patents, would enhance the public.
This is too long term a fix for most politicians to consider.
3 comments ↓
I have been ripped off by patent attorneys and people I have shown my inventions to all my life and never made a dime. This morning after having my patent attorney tell me that one of my patent applications, which I might add was not suposed to be filed as another patent but was an addition to the original patent came back as rejected. When I talked to my attorney he told me if I thought the second application was the one I was going to use I should abandon both. One year earlier he had told me I could go ahead with Pat Pend on the product! I had spent thousands and thousands on the original.
It finally came to me! Maybe there are people that just search abandoned patents? So this morning I tried to find abandonded patents on google and came across this article.
I was wondering because of the date on the article if there has been any recent changes to it.
I am now 68 years old and have lost both my retirement and my saving to the stock market.
Would patent attorneys be excluded from filing additional patents once they see an abandonded patent in their name or a friends name?
I would be very interested to have this information because it give me a very good idea to bounce back after going broke.
Thank you,
Rod Reynolds
See my above statement then I would like to ask if abondended patents are published. If so is there a way to look them up.
I would also like to ask how one files for a patent themselves and where the information can be aquired.
Thank you,
Rod Reynolds
First, the magic book on Patents is “Patent It Yourself” by Nolo Press. There is no substitute. You should be able to read and understand your own patents.
Second, every patent application gets a rejection. A Rejection is part of a conversation between you and the patent office to determine exactly what is novel and should be covered by a patent. Handling rejections is cheap compared to filing patents.
Third, pursuing patents generally protects your business. It is not the entire business. Go sell.
Finally, there is no way of seeing abandoned patents. The knowledge is kept confidential and thus disappears. I was hoping that the patent office should publish the abandoned patents twenty years after they are filed so the knowledge is never lost.
The “patent pending” claim is correct. There are cheap ways to get the moniker if you wish it.
Leave a Comment