Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[sharanbr]

Hi,

Supposing I give solution simply by using multiple tools available today, would that still be qualified for patenting.
One of the reason to use available tools would be due to fact that there is no reason to invent the wheel all over again.

Also, if one develops a product using the free GNU tools available, what would be patentable.
Would it be the product? or the method that is used to create the product?

For example, in my case the idea really is that no one has thought about what I am trying to implement.
It can be implemented using known tools available.

Regards

[CriterionD]

Hi,

Supposing I give solution simply by using multiple tools available today, would that still be qualified for patenting.

Hypothetically, sure

Also, if one develops a product using the free GNU tools available, what would be patentable.
Would it be the product? or the method that is used to create the product?

Again, hypothetically, sure.  It could be the product and/or the method used to create it which is patentable.

However, depending on the terms of a relevant GNU license agreement, your ability to capitalize on your invention might be limited here, patented or not.

[JimIvey]

New and non-obvious combinations of known things are patentable.  New and non-obvious combinations of known software elements/tools are no exception. 

Be careful, though.  Patents are loathed in the open source community.  In addition, if you eventually come out with a commercial product, be careful to comply with applicable open source licenses.  "Free" software is not unrestricted; it's just restricted in a way to discourage future restrictions on the software.  In addition, there was talk a while back about changing some open source licenses such that seeking patent protection on related development could vitiate the license.

I'd say go ahead and use open source software tools for research, but look into the licensing issues carefully when you decide to produce a commercial product.  You might just have to reinvent (or license) the wheel.

Regards.

[sharanbr]

Thanks.

So a few related question would be:

instead of getting into opensource quagmire, if I were to simply describe method to get
a certain task done, that would work. Right?
Needless to say, I might use open source tools to get my method right or to convince myself
about the ability of the method. But the method can be generic enough. For example, I can
say take a n-set of numbers and create permutations of them. This is an intermediate step.
Now, perl gives a function to do permutation.

Regards,

[JimIvey]

I think your understanding is correct. 

Regards.