As a PhD candidate in the physics department, you conceive a new laser system which employs crystalline novelonium as the lasing material, which provides a new form of coherent light that has peculiar effects on magnetic fields. The only use for novelonium in the published literature was in providing light emitting diodes that provided a reasonably high efficiency but set no world records.
Two years later, after meeting Sally and fathering her child, you decide physics is not for you, and decide to become a patent illustrator, to feed your family. Recalling tat the lawyer at Big Univ. had given you a written waiver of rights, which unequivocally states that Big Univ. has waived any ownership interest, you then think you want to seek a patent on your novelonium-based laser, but are concerned that the written disclosure you made to three PhD-level advisors in the Physics Dept. at the Big Univ. may constitute prohibitive prior art. You consult with a patent attorney, who says she will find out, but it's been 10 weeks and she is on vacation now and you read where others are beginning to play around with novelonium, since Sigma has made commercial quantities for researchers available at a reasonable cost. You search the records and policies of Big Univ. for a statement that disclosures to research committees are confidential, but can find none. Finally, you hear from your cousin, an inventor with 47 patents to his name, that everyone in the world knows that disclosures made to PhD advising commitees are held in confidence, and that you have nothing to worry about, to go and mortgage your Volkswagen Rabbit and hire that attorney to write and file a spec.
Should you believe your cousin ?
Should you expect your attorney to be forced to file a Rule 1.56 disclosure including the written proposal you made to those three PhD's in the university's advising commitee to the patent office, thus potentially fatally harming your chances at a patent ?
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Topic: 102 problems ? (Read 854 times)
