So I'm searching for background info on a particular claim in a mass transfer patent

[NNadir]

I'm working on, and I see something very, very, very, very close, issued in the late 20th century. It's not exactly the same, but close.

I don't know whether to be relieved or concerned.

It's pretty cool in any case.

On one hand it's confirmation of the basic idea, but on the other hand, it's prior art that limits the breadth of any claims in this direction.

Prior art, I think. To save time and risk, I'll definitely cite it. It's not even close to being essential to the broader claims in any case and I don't see how any good examiner could miss it in any case.

[joshcryer]

1. Link?

[Howzit]

2. Give us a clue - something like this?

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PALL&s1=%22mass+tansfer%22&OS=

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/search-adv.htm

[NNadir]

3. Well looking at the details of the their system, I think I can still make some claims.

So I'd rather not post the exact case.

A few years back, a guy patented a hanger. The hanger was a wire hanger with a paper or plastic tube where the clothes hung. (We've all seen that kind.) Hangers were known, plastic or paper tubes were known and wire was known, but the patent held and made lots of money.

[joshcryer]

4. Well, can you talk about the kinda mass transfer you're thinking of?

It is a bit too ambiguous for me. I understand if you don't desire to discuss it in depth. It is definitely interesting that you can find something similar so far back though. If you get the patent let us know. :P

[NNadir]

5. The first thing that happens when you go to license a patent that happens

is that the potential licensee tries to examine everything in his, her, or their experience (or potential experience) that they can do to accomplish the same task without paying you any royalties.

That's good business.

Essentially, besides filing infringement suits, the best thing a patent attorney can do for you - a good one - is to assure that your claims are broad enough that there will be infringement suits, and also, paradoxically, that your patent will be rejected at least once. If it's not rejected, you haven't claimed enough.

If you read a composition of matter patent from a major corporation, for instance, you will see that they almost try to claim every known and unknown compound of a particular type. I've seen patents that seem to wish to claim the entire periodic table and all known combinations thereof.

Sometimes this leads to hellacious reckonings.

I've been at very funny meetings where two companies are giving gracious scientific talks, back to back, while each company is suing the hell out of the other over stuff that their both talking about at the meeting, each claiming as their own. This is relatively common in the pharmaceutical industry.

The thing I wished to claim is more or less peripheral to the broader scope, and I may be able to claim that system as a reaction medium rather than a separation medium.

I've actually been to the facility of the assignee in this case, on an entirely unrelated matter. My impression of them is that some of those guys working there are full of shit, but I can't say I know them all. Interestingly they had to locate their facility - the one I went to - remotely because of the possibility that they would blow their plant up, I kid you not. They were in the energetic materials field. If you go around the world enough, you can see lots of those kinds of plants, like the ammonium perchlorate plant that blew up in Henderson, Nevada. (The Henderson plant was not the assignee I was talking about by the way, although the assignee did make explosives and propellants.)

[Posteritatis]

6. Since when do contemporary patents worry about prior art?

Microsoft patented taxonomy, various companies have patents on about one third of my genome, and I'm just waiting for someone to get exclusive rights to the letter E.

[NNadir]

7. It will be interesting to see them enforce their patents on you being you.

It's one thing to have a patent, another to enforce it, and a third thing to make money on it.