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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Microphonics Inc. (mrps) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mitch who wrote (7560)	8/10/1999 3:30:00 PM
From: Tiger Lily	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 8189

This information comes courtesy of a patent attorney: Many valuable inventions are independently and simultaneously conceived. The US patent system is a first-to-invent system. A laboratory "notebook," or other similarly dated records, will be an important piece of evidence to show who came up with the invention on the date given. For inventors outside the US, US law has been changed to allow notebooks to be used to prove invention dates on inventions made in Europe or Asia but filed in the US. Thus, the fact that another inventor is first-to-file in Europe or Asia is not controlling as long as the inventor is first-to-invent and the invention is filed in the US. NOTE: Europe & Asia are first-to-file systems. This attorney told me that major US companies try to keep certain patents pending for as long as possible for many reasons, two of them being: 1. to keep the information out of their competitor's hands for as long as possible 2. to push the final issue date out as far as possible to delay the 20 year clock from starting. Q: What is patentable? A: There are four legal requirements: 1. An invention must be useful. 2. An invention must be new. Any difference from the prior art, however, is sufficient. 3. An invention must be unobvious. This means that at the time you came up with the invention, your invention would have been considered unobvious to a person of average skill in the specific technology area. Unobviousness is best shown by new and unexpected results when compared to the old technology ("prior art"). 4. An invention must fit into one of the following four categories: - Process - Machine - Manufacture - Composition I hope this helps defray the confusion a bit. Lily Li