Abstract
The technical information available in patents has always been indispensable for technical staff working in industry, but patents have been difficult to get a hold of in the past. Now, with the Internet, the millions of patents and patent applications that have been published over more than a century are often easier to access than journal articles; additionally, access is free. However, reading patents and extracting the proper information from them requires some background information and training. This chapter explains how to read a patent and how to obtain one. It regularly highlights where and how the United States differs from Europe. Additional patent aspects will be discussed in subsequent chapters using edible oil processing patents as examples.
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Notes
- 1.
In the United States, there are also patent attorneys. Patent agents have a scientific or technical background and attorneys have a legal background. The distinction is similar to that between a solicitor and a barrister.
- 2.
This may well be one of the reasons why the European Patent Office has a branch in Rijswijk near The Hague, which focuses on literature searches.
- 3.
That is why I find it difficult to accept that certain biotechnological findings qualify for patent protection.
- 4.
This is an illustration of the use of the first person in patents.
- 5.
This newspaper is the Leeuwarder Courant, founded in 1752 and still published today.
- 6.
At this point, Dr. Scott Bloomer, a US patent agent who kindly reviewed my draft text, remarked that this may not generally be true in each country and may also change. He also advised me to add a sentence stating that nothing in this chapter should be construed as legal advice. Please note that.
- 7.
When I worked for Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in the 1960s in a research laboratory, I also had to use these notebooks just in case ICI wanted to apply for a patent in the US
- 8.
As pointed out when discussing a Spanish patent in the next chapter, Spanish claims do not necessarily consist of a single sentence.
- 9.
In US prosecution, a less specialized person can be referred to as “one of ordinary skill in the art.”
- 10.
A Google Advanced Patent Search specifying “composition of matter” in the title led to close to 6,000 hits.
- 11.
It is also used in titles but causes difficulties as exemplified by Jakel et al. (2003), which includes products compressing corn oil.
- 12.
The German patent system has always published applications as filed, and they were called Offenlegungsschrift (In Dutch Terinzagelegging). The English language had no word for this and so described this publication as “German Laid-Open Publication,” which is a rather literal translation from the German. Similar Japanese applications have also been referred to as “Unexamined Patent Applications.” Now that the US and the UK publish applications and call them “(12) Patent Application Publication” (US) or “(12) UK Patent Application,” the German Offenlegungsschrifte can also be referred to as “Patent Applications” in English.
- 13.
- 14.
In Belgium, companies that are located in an area where the official language is French can only file applications that have been written in French; in Flanders, applications have to be written in Dutch.
- 15.
Because selling involves handing over money, ICI, my first industrial employer, gave inventors a silver dollar when they applied for a US patent. I liked this custom and tried to introduce the same tradition within the Vandemoortele Group. It was tolerated for the first two or three patents but then frowned upon as a waste of good money and discontinued.
- 16.
This is the way that ReferenceManager® (a software program I use as literature database and to generate the bibliographies at the end of each chapter in this monograph) describes the choice I have to make when formatting the bibliography settings. For this monograph, I chose for name order: Last First Middle and for initials FM to be in accordance with the guidelines of the publisher. Formatting the settings is a bit of work, but subsequently, generating the bibliography without typing errors is only a single mouse click.
- 17.
By using capitals for LAST, I indicate that PCT applications also use capitals when printing them.
- 18.
Transcribing into Japanese and back also leads to names that may be difficult to recognize. The bibliographic data provided by Espacenet for Japanese Published Patent Application JP5117685 mention a certain Aruberuto Yan Deikusutora as one of the inventors. That is me.
- 19.
Since Müller is quite a common surname, further search criteria are useful to reduce the number of hits.
- 20.
The European patent title page also has some typing errors: J zsefinstead of József and Bor di instead of Boródi.
- 21.
An Office Action is just a letter sent by the patent office.
- 22.
In this context, it is interesting to note that the big three or ABC (Archer-Daniels-Midland, Bunge, and Cargill) rely heavily on outside patent offices.
- 23.
The word “object” has several meanings. In patent jargon, it means (Oxford English Dictionary) “a goal or purpose: the Institute was opened with the object of promoting scientific study.”
- 24.
The examples in this section stem from Adami et al. (2008), an application I drafted myself.
- 25.
In Dutch, there is the word vakbroeder, the literal translation of which is “brother in the profession.” I like this word and regret that there is no similarly illustrative English equivalent.
- 26.
Yet another example of legalistic patent jargon. Why not “carry out the invented process”?
- 27.
This is not a typing error for Bioresources; I checked it on the Internet.
- 28.
The Oxford English Dictionary mentions an archaic meaning of “to circumvent”: “to deceive, outwit,” meanings that are highly appropriate in the present context. The Dutch, being seafarers, use the word omzeilen, which means “to sail around.”
- 29.
Specifications that have been translated into English regularly refer to “crude oil” as “raw oil” (Rohöl).
- 30.
When claiming monohydric alcohols with up to six carbon atoms, it is not necessary to include examples with a whole range of different alcohols with up to six carbon atoms. If the examples include the use of two alcohols, such as methanol and ethanol, it is considered to be a sufficient base to claim the whole range.
- 31.
Correspondence originating from a national patent office is referred to as Office Action.
- 32.
This “supports” is jargon again. It means that the specification must provide a basis for the amendment. Say the claim being disputed mentions a periodical movement and the prior art used to dispute this claim refers to a vertical movement; then an amendment could only limit the claim to a horizontal movement if the specification explicitly mentions this horizontal movement.
- 33.
My reviewer is not too certain about this. I would not be surprised if this statement was not valid in all countries.
- 34.
To highlight the transitional phrase, Dutch application publications, which were distributed as stencils, used to extend it by inserting spaces in between the letters “m e t h e t k e n m e r k d a t” (characterized in that). This could be done with an ordinary typewriter as used to make the stencils.
- 35.
Nabisco Brands, a merger between Standard Brands (margarine) and Nabisco (biscuits), was discussing a license with the Vandemoortele Group for the directed interesterification process of the latter (De Lathauwer et al. 1981). This patent by Nabisco Brands was an attempt to strengthen its negotiation position.
- 36.
Independent claims start with “A process” or “An apparatus”; dependent claims start with, “The process according to” or “The apparatus according to.”
- 37.
Up until April 2008, this additional fee applied to the 11th and each subsequent claim.
- 38.
This is referred to as “cross licensing.”
- 39.
I went to www.google.com/patents and searched for “pray” AND “granted” and this yielded 144 hits.
- 40.
A large proportion of Belgian law is a straight copy from French law.
- 41.
Even so, I approached Canada Packers and arranged with Mr. Mag that this company would give a license to Vandemoortele if a Canadian or US company wanted a TOP license.
- 42.
The fee of £ 150 is well worth it and much lower than the few thousand dollars mentioned in Bloomer (2004c).
- 43.
Patent agents working in an outside office may not necessarily be conversant with the jargon used in discussing edible oils and fats. I remember one patent agent who preferred to speak of removing gums by filtration rather than by centrifuge. He had not realized that “our” gums are rather viscous fluids. Instead, he interpreted the word “gums” as referring to something that had more the consistency of jelly babies.
- 44.
There is no equivalent proverb in English, but the Dutch one means that in practice, rules are often applied less strictly.
- 45.
The German language has a delightful expression: In der Beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister, which, for lack of an equivalent, I can translate as “Restraint reveals the hand of the master.”
- 46.
Does this remind you of patent specifications? “It is a further object of the invention ….”
- 47.
In Dutch, this fee is called an “honorarium.” Never refer to the invoice sent by such exalted persons as patent agents as a bill or check, but only as a monetary gift in honor of their profession.
- 48.
In the US, the patent agent may lard his reply to the Office Action with phrases like, “See In re Antonie, 559 F.2d 618, 195 USPQ 6 (CCPA 1977). Also MPEP 2144.05 II B,” which no doubt make sense to insiders and may strengthen his arguments but do not mean anything to a chemist.
- 49.
In this monograph, I will use abbreviations without defining them in accordance with the guidelines issued by the J. Am. Oil Chem. Soc.
- 50.
I looked up “marc” in my dictionary and read that it meant “the refuse of grapes used in winemaking.” It is derived from the French marcher, to walk or tread, since that was how grapes were treated to give up their juice. In edible oil processing, the word “marc” is also used to indicate solvent–wet extraction residue.
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Dijkstra, A.J. (2013). Introducing the World of Patents. In: Edible Oil Processing from a Patent Perspective. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3351-4_1
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