| > You are correct it is not a method...it is a description for purposes of the thread. Do you think a patent application can be granted without specific claims or as you call it the specific way to achieve that result? Right, but the way you refer to it shows that you think you have a good claim on the entire result, not just one or two methods. > That is not how the law works, I don't own the result No, you just own all the ways you came up with to achieve that result. If you named all the obvious ones, then you effectively do. Otherwise you'd have said "I have a patent on using NLP techniques to do XYZ" or something. > I welcome you to explain how I achieve the result or even some of those obvious/direct ways to do it. No offense, you won't, why do I know that? That's what you would say. If it's true, your patent is one in a million. If there is a non-obvious element in any given patent it's almost always the result. Once your boss tells you to automatically calculate pricing from charging docs you have the same tools as everyone else. > I find the people who typically rail against the current patent system have never: a) filed a patent, [...] Well, my company's lawyer filed my patents... But I still think it's an entirely counterproductive system. I've always been ordered not to read any patents, except ours. Any theoretical gain to society from information sharing is obviously not happening in practice. > Apple's rectangle with rounded edges That's more akin to a trademark though. That is supposed to cover a result, not the technique of achieving it. > what do you honestly believe has happened more often: patent troll lawsuits or big companies stealing inventions? A better question than mere frequency would be, which do I think has been more harmful - All patent trolls, or all "stolen" inventions. And an even better question would be, which one do I think we could fix, and with how much incidental damage. |