Posted by Chuck Tribolet on December 07, 2004 at 07:42:40:
In Reply to: Patenting diving inventions posted by Eric S on December 06, 2004 at 22:08:04:
I've got five US patents on software stuff. My
employer supplied the pattent attorney. If you
are going to do the legal work yourself, recognize
going in that patents are written in a language that
only vaguely resembles English ;-)
Consult legal texts or a patent attorney BEFORE you
start telling people about your invention. If you
make it public before filing, it becomes its own
"prior art" and can't be patented. Interestingly,
the classic case of screwing this up is the guy
who invented the single hose reg. He'd been
selling it for a while before he filed. No patent.
In my case, we had to get the patents filed before
I could give a talk at a conference.
I don't think patenting dive gear would be any
different than anything else.