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[313230]

Hi everyone, I had a question

If a thing was patented, could it forbid other people using it with other purpose?

Example, a patent claim a mechanism with a benefit to reduce size of a device, could it forbid other people using that mechanism with other purpose?Other people might find other benefits like more reliable, cheaper, work faster,.. so they using it for those purposes but didn't reduce the device size, or didn't using that mechanism as the way the inventor thought. Is it allowable? Or if a mechanism was patented, it would be protected by mechanism or claims, and would not be allowed to use by whatever purposes?

Thanks!

[JimIvey]

A claim covers exactly what it says it covers. 

Having said that, if the claim includes a general statement of purpose in the preamble (generally a bad idea in my opinion), whether that language is to be taken seriously depends on the context.  The context includes the other claims of the patent, the description portion of the patent, the entire dialog of the patent applicant with the Patent Office before getting the patent, and what prior art references describe.

Regards.

[313230]

Thanks for your answer!