Protecting Your Ideas : The Inventor's Guide to Patents

Rating:
Summary: helpful guide on patents
Review: One of the most complete and up-to-date books for inventors is _Protecting_ by Mrs Bryant, who is a patent agent. After distinguishing patents from copyrights and trade secrets, she outlines a roadmap for inventors and identifies many of the pitfalls likely to be encountered. As a collateral benefit, she also summarizes the process for initiating foreign applications through the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The intended audience is predominantly engineers (both regarding personal inventions and those assigned to their employers) with suggestions on documentation and diligence along with expected costs, but patent agents and attorneys can also benefit from the overview on statutory intent and court interpretation. The figures showing the relevant forms are an added benefit. One unintentionally amusing comment was her observation that "many lawyers" do not satisfy the requirements to register before the US Patent & Trademark Office. Actually, only a tiny handful of attorneys qualify to formally prosecute patent applications (although registration is not needed for litigation or licensing, and in fairness the author probably means "intellectual property" lawyers of whom patent attorneys are a subset). Hopefully a revised edition will address publication of patent applications from the American Inventors Protection Act and the impact of _Festo_v._Shoketsu_ on the Doctrine of Equivalents - both developing after the book's publication - as well as correct the assertion that PTO registration is available only from passing the (rather difficult) patent exam - the alternative method is to work as a patent examiner. Otherwise, _Protecting_ presents a valuable and recommended resource to engineers and scientists.

Rating:
Summary: helpful guide on patents
Review: One of the most complete and up-to-date books for inventors is _Protecting_ by Mrs Bryant, who is a patent agent. After distinguishing patents from copyrights and trade secrets, she outlines a roadmap for inventors and identifies many of the pitfalls likely to be encountered. As a collateral benefit, she also summarizes the process for initiating foreign applications through the Patent Cooperation Treaty. The intended audience is predominantly engineers (both regarding personal inventions and those assigned to their employers) with suggestions on documentation and diligence along with expected costs, but patent agents and attorneys can also benefit from the overview on statutory intent and court interpretation. The figures showing the relevant forms are an added benefit. One unintentionally amusing comment was her observation that "many lawyers" do not satisfy the requirements to register before the US Patent & Trademark Office. Actually, only a tiny handful of attorneys qualify to formally prosecute patent applications (although registration is not needed for litigation or licensing, and in fairness the author probably means "intellectual property" lawyers of whom patent attorneys are a subset). Hopefully a revised edition will address publication of patent applications from the American Inventors Protection Act and the impact of _Festo_v._Shoketsu_ on the Doctrine of Equivalents - both developing after the book's publication - as well as correct the assertion that PTO registration is available only from passing the (rather difficult) patent exam - the alternative method is to work as a patent examiner. Otherwise, _Protecting_ presents a valuable and recommended resource to engineers and scientists.

Rating:
Summary: Great Primer on IP law
Review: Too many lay people and even legal professionals have no idea about the differences between patents, trademarks, and copyrights. Joy Bryant's work, in addition to outlining the patent process, provides a clear explanation of the various kinds of intellectual property law in general. This book is a "must" read for general practice attorneys who want to point their clients in the right direction for answers to IP questions. It is also a great tool for patent attorneys to use to educate their clients on the process of obtaining a patent.

Rating:
Summary: Information Every Scientist/Engineers Can Use
Review: Tremendous resource for scientists and other geeks. Succinct read. Answers the FAQs: 'What is a patent?', , 'Who can I turn to for help?', 'Are there special patent libraries for researching my ideas?', 'How do I search the technical/patent literature?', 'What are claims?', 'I can't afford to patent, how can I still protect my idea?'

Like the numerous tips & checklists -- very helpful!