Re: The patent process [Was Re: Sharing the Family PC is Patent-Pending]

[AES/newspost]

In article <0a6d566512324680bd8cc8739db81015@news.teranews.com>,
 A Waterfall That Barks <jabailo@earthlink.net> wrote:

> 
> The right conferred by the patent grant is, in the language of the 
> statute and of the grant itself, ³the right to exclude others from 
> making, using, offering for sale, or selling² the invention in the 
> United States or ³importing² the invention into the United States. What 
> is granted is not the right to make, use, offer for sale, sell or 
> import, but the right to exclude others from making, using, offering for 
> sale, selling or importing the invention.
> 

Glad to see this basic character of patents so clearly stated.  Seems to 
me it rather dramatically emphasizes the nature of a patent -- and the 
misconceptions as to the "rights" of an inventor in his invention that 
are perpetuated by much of the conventional discussion of patents.  

In brief, obtaining a patent grants the inventor no new rights of any 
kind with respect to using, making, selling, or otherwise explointing 
his invention, that he would not already have without obtaining a 
patent.  It only *takes away* rights from *others* that these others 
would have had, had the patent not been granted (including in particular 
their rights to use, make, sell, or exploit the same invention should 
they themselves independently make exactly the same invention).