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Re: [compost_tea] Re: Composting Council



Title: Re: [compost_tea] Re: Composting Council
I have to disagree with my business partner, Jeff.  Unless I completely missed the tone of several emails over the last few days (indignation and contempt?), I'd like to add just a bit of semi-informed background on the question of patenting.  Unlike copyrights and trademarks, which are "registered" (in other words, I wrote this book, song, etc. and I am hereby declaring publicly -- by registering it -- that I did....so, everybody out there, steal it at your peril!!!!), patents are "granted".  Big, big difference.   Registering copyrights and trademarks doesn't involve the equivalent of a patent search or anything like it by either the applicant or the copyright office.  Securing (being "granted") a patent, on the other hand, is a whole other world involving a ton of research by both the applicant and the patent office.   

But the key point here is this:  The fact that an idea, practice or concept has been around for a while, even a long while, doesn't somehow mean it's not potentially patentable by someone --even if he or she didn't directly develop it.  Most inventions for which patents are granted are really an aggregation of and rely on all kinds of past work and experience in order to coalesce into a unique idea.  The applicant is sometimes the first one to recognize its novelty and utility and to spend the time, energy and money to slalom through the patenting process.    

Once the application is made (and it is a LOT of work and has to satisfy a number of standards), the patent office's job is then to see if the purported invention is, in fact, an invention (you can't, as an example, patent gravity, even if nobody else has tried before -- and possibly not the general process of brewing compost tea) and whether it is indeed truly novel or whether it bumps into a nearby idea which has already been patented (i.e. "prior art").   In the context of the compost tea issue, it is important to remember that the patent office doesn't keep a huge folder of ideas or practices of things (comport tea?) that should or could have been patented but haven't been.  What they have are 6 million existing patents to compare the applicant's to and see if it infringes on someone's "prior art". Nor does the patent office care whether something that is patentable can or should ever be made commercial.  Not their job.  I hope this is useful. Comments or clariFrom: soilfoodweb@aol.com
Reply-To: compost_tea@yahoogroups.com
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2002 01:33:59 EST
To: compost_tea@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [compost_tea] Re: Composting Council


Can I send you a copy so your lawyer can send it?  I have several articles actually, some published in 1999, long before any hint of Alms submitting a patent.  

I'll pay for your lawyer to send the letter.  Just help me make sure the patent is denied, because the air bubbler systems were clearly public-domain long before Alms thought of his machine.

Elaine
President, Soil Foodweb Inc.
www.soilfoodweb.com

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