IEEE Today's Engineer has a great little quiz about intellectual property. How much of your idea does a patent protect? Does your employer really own everything that you invent? Some of the answers may surprise you.
Am I right in thinking that the US Patents Office grants all applications and will only test novelty etc if someone objects and brings a legal case?
In the European Patent Office (and therefore all of its subscribing states) the patent is thoroughly examined at the application stage and there is a six month objection period after grant. This results in fewer litigations, and presumably these are more of the "They're using our idea" rather than "I thought of it first" type.
It does all still come down to money though - it's a costly process, particularly for lone inventors or small companies.
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Chaos always wins because it's better organised.
Patents
