Michael J. Mahon wrote:
Rick Cortese wrote:
<snip>
Actually, the limitation is that the patent application must be *filed* prior to public disclosure.
I have two friends that are patent lawyers, well one died on me recently, and they have both told me otherwise. More along the lines of the patent *is* the disclosure that you are getting exclusive rights because of. Once any public disclosure is made, the patent office well see no need to give you any rights to reveal how you did something.
It was/is a bit of a problem because of the "Publish or Perish" and trying to drum up business by telling other companies about the latest greatest you just came up with. We could cover some problems with non disclosure agreements but we still couldn't let info out into a public forum.
Rick