Posts Tagged ‘Detectability’
Why Patent Competence Is a CEO’s Responsibility
Why outsourcing it to a patent attorney is one of the most common — and expensive — mistakes founders make There’s a simple test for whether a patent actually matters: Did it change your competitor’s behavior? If the answer is no, then whatever you have is not protection. It may be a patent in the…
Read MoreAre Patents Still Relevant in the Age of AI?
The cost to build software is collapsing. Not slowly. Not incrementally. It’s collapsing fast enough that entire assumptions about startups, competition, and defensibility no longer hold. AI has changed the economics of software development in two fundamental ways. First, it has reduced the time required to build functional products. Second, it has reduced the number…
Read MoreAI Startups: Protect Everything EXCEPT the Patent
Short version: For most AI companies, patents on “using AI for X” don’t protect you. They backfire by revealing your method while remaining practically unenforceable. The competitive advantage is in your data, processes, distribution, and customers—so protect those and build your business around the reality that competitors can do something similar. The uncomfortable truth about…
Read MoreDamage Control: Filing Patents After An Employee Leaves
Capturing ideas so you own them can limit the damage a key employee might inflict when they go to a competitor. A company-wide strategy for patents can have ancillary benefits when dealing with employee issues. Let’s say your company is in a highly competitive market for talent, and a key inventor/employee announced that they are going…
Read MoreMethod Claims and Undetectability
Why these types of claims can be harmful to an inventor – and when they make a patent unenforceable. Method claims are especially difficult to detect, but they have another twist that makes them less important than “apparatus” claims. Method patents are infringed only when and where someone does the method. Method claims can be…
Read MoreExamples of Undetectable Inventions
This past week, I looked at a couple companies and their IP. Both had an interesting but fundamental problem that made their IP worthless. We will talk about one of them in this post. I have a great technology – does anyone care? There are lots of companies with various air filtration/disinfectant patents. These are…
Read MoreWhat Is Patent Infringement?
Patent infringement is when someone else uses your patented idea without permission. The strict, legal definition is when someone infringes or performs every limitation of at least one patent claim. This is found in 35 USC 271. Many inventors and entrepreneurs believe that having a patent means they are “protected.” Having a patent just means…
Read MoreLawsuit dismissed for undetectable software patent claims
Summary: Undetectable[1][2] claims are a huge problem during litigation. This highlights the disconnect between what the patent attorney does during examination – and what the litigator needs to successfully sue infringers. DataWidget vs Mailchimp Datawidget sued Mailchimp for patent infringement[3], but the case was dismissed because the patent claims were undetectable. The patent being asserted…
Read MoreDetectability is a Key Factor for Patent Value
Updated 16 Jan 2022. Patents Need to be Detectable. This may appear to be an obvious statement, but people pour money into patents where infringement simply cannot be detected. Here’s a case where undetectable software claims were thrown out of federal court. When looking at an invention (or an issued patent), one of the first…
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