3 ms·
You're not required to proof anything; you can (and people often do) patent things that just seem good ideas at the time. If you work for big companies you're
by trebligdivad 8y ago
You're not required to proof anything; you can (and people often do) patent things that just seem good ideas at the time. If you work for big companies you're strongly encouraged to patent lots, and generally all you have to do is persuade some of your colleagues that it makes sense before then convincing the patent examiners it's new.
- jdietrich 8y agoThere are thousands of patents for perpetual motion machines. An invention must be novel, useful and non-obvious to be patentable, but it doesn't actually have to work. https://patents.google.com/?q="perpetual+motion" https://patents.google.com/?q="perpetual+motion"
- Sharlin 8y agoIt can’t be very useful if it cannot work even in principle though.
- pjdemers 8y agoI thought perpetual motion machines claims were automatically denied. I know they were back in the 1970s when my dad worked at the patent office.
- andybak 8y agoYes but the interesting aspect of this is that they had to make a specific rule for this case. In the general case of "filing nonsense" the system fails.
- Alex3917 8y ago> I thought perpetual motion machines claims were automatically denied. I think the current policy is they are only patentable if there is a working unit that runs for at least a year when left alone in the patent office.
- keithpeter 8y agoPeer review strikes me (as a complete outsider to this world) as potentially quite a good filter. Were your colleagues critical or taking stuff on trust?