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This comment is not legal advice. This comment is merely for educational purposes. The quote that you have about the 1997 patent, namely "U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,

This comment is not legal advice. This comment is merely for educational purposes. The quote that you have about the 1997 patent, namely "U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,925 teaches a process for adjusting the deposition rate..." is from the specification. That is written by either the inventors or more likely the attorneys filing the application. The specification is not legally enforceable or binding. It is supposed to disclose enough information to let somebody reproduce the claimed invention. As a matter of practice, the specification can say almost anything it wants, including non-enforceable things. Only the claims are legally enforceable. I suggest taking a closer look at the claims and seeing if these are problematic for your application or not. You may want to consult an attorney if you have further questions. You can look up the patent examiner's reasoning for allowing the application here: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/17667081 https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/17667081 Click on "Documents and Transactions" and look for "Notice of Allowance and Fees Due". Also look for the "Non-Final Rejection" for additional information from the examiner from an earlier version of the application. I should note that it does not appear that the patent examiner considered the 1997 patent directly relevant because they did not cite it in any of the office actions or specifically the PTO-892 forms (search the documents page for 892 to see what I'm talking about). However, they likely did at least look at it since it is listed in the specification. Again, if you have further questions, you really should consult an attorney. This is not a good forum for this kind of discussion, in my opinion.

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schiffern 2y ago
> The quote that you have about the 1997 patent, namely "U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,925 teaches a process for adjusting the deposition rate..." is from the specification. > I should note that it does not appear that the patent examiner considered the 1997 patent directly relevant because they did not cite it... However, they likely did at least look at it since it is listed in the specification. Again that quote from the specification gives the wrong patent number, so we don't know that the patent examiner looked at it.
- deleted 2y ago
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- atrettel 2y ago
  Wow, great catch! I just copied the text idly without reading it closely. I agree that the examiner may not have looked at the discussed reference (US5653925A). (Disclaimer: this is not legal advice.)
  - bartolozanen 2y ago
    testing
- bartzanen 2y ago
  [dead]
FL410 2y ago
> This comment is not legal advice. Serious question, why do lawyers always do this? No other profession seems to feel the need to disclaim their dialog. Is there some precedent for attorneys discussing their area of expertise and unwittingly becoming someone’s counsel?
- atrettel 2y ago
  No problem, I'll give you a serious answer. First of all, I'm not a lawyer. I'm a mechanical engineer. And to answer your question, yes, many attorneys are in fact worried about giving legal advice online [1], especially the fact that it may imply some sort of legal representation being extended. This is why I added the disclaimer at the top and why I emphasized that this is not the right forum for this and that the original poster should in fact get an attorney (which strongly implies that I am not their attorney). This is also why I did not discuss the specifics of the claims being made in the different patents, because that could imply that I am giving specific legal advice. I am not giving any legal advice. Instead, I just discussed broadly how the patent system works in this particular context, especially in regards to what parts of a patent are legally enforceable and how examiners examine patents (and how you can look up what they did). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL (Extended disclaimer for the sake of emphasis: I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice. My comments in this thread are merely educational in nature.)
  - User23 2y ago
    If you were a lawyer then you'd be bound by bar standards and such. But you're not, so why the disclaimer? Is there some legal jeopardy a non-lawyer places themselves in by talking about the law? If so that sounds positively dystopian. More generally I am entirely supportive of not giving unsolicited advice of any sort. Not for legal reasons, but because it's presumptuous, rude, and often even pompous.
    - MKRhere 2y ago
      I believe atrettel wanted to be transparent about the nature of their reply more than protecting themselves from jeopardy. Also, this is not unsolicited as OP has asked a specific question to the community.

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schiffern 2y ago

> The quote that you have about the 1997 patent, namely "U.S. Pat. No. 5,659,925 teaches a process for adjusting the deposition rate..." is from the specification. > I should note that it does not appear that the patent examiner considered the 1997 patent directly relevant because they did not cite it... However, they likely did at least look at it since it is listed in the specification. Again that quote from the specification gives the wrong patent number, so we don't know that the patent examiner looked at it.

deleted 2y ago
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atrettel 2y ago
Wow, great catch! I just copied the text idly without reading it closely. I agree that the examiner may not have looked at the discussed reference (US5653925A). (Disclaimer: this is not legal advice.)
- bartolozanen 2y ago
  testing
bartzanen 2y ago
[dead]

FL410 2y ago

> This comment is not legal advice. Serious question, why do lawyers always do this? No other profession seems to feel the need to disclaim their dialog. Is there some precedent for attorneys discussing their area of expertise and unwittingly becoming someone’s counsel?

atrettel 2y ago
No problem, I'll give you a serious answer. First of all, I'm not a lawyer. I'm a mechanical engineer. And to answer your question, yes, many attorneys are in fact worried about giving legal advice online [1], especially the fact that it may imply some sort of legal representation being extended. This is why I added the disclaimer at the top and why I emphasized that this is not the right forum for this and that the original poster should in fact get an attorney (which strongly implies that I am not their attorney). This is also why I did not discuss the specifics of the claims being made in the different patents, because that could imply that I am giving specific legal advice. I am not giving any legal advice. Instead, I just discussed broadly how the patent system works in this particular context, especially in regards to what parts of a patent are legally enforceable and how examiners examine patents (and how you can look up what they did). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IANAL (Extended disclaimer for the sake of emphasis: I am not a lawyer. I am not your lawyer. This is not legal advice. My comments in this thread are merely educational in nature.)
- User23 2y ago
  If you were a lawyer then you'd be bound by bar standards and such. But you're not, so why the disclaimer? Is there some legal jeopardy a non-lawyer places themselves in by talking about the law? If so that sounds positively dystopian. More generally I am entirely supportive of not giving unsolicited advice of any sort. Not for legal reasons, but because it's presumptuous, rude, and often even pompous.
  - MKRhere 2y ago
    I believe atrettel wanted to be transparent about the nature of their reply more than protecting themselves from jeopardy. Also, this is not unsolicited as OP has asked a specific question to the community.