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Now, How Is It That You Accidentally File A Patent On Someone Else's Work?
from the just-wondering dept
Following the news that Microsoft had filed and then retracted a patent application that was clearly on work done by someone else (which they had publicly admitted to before the patent was filed), it seems that a few people are wondering exactly how someone goes about "accidentally" filing patents -- and, more to the point, wondering how many of Microsoft's other 3,808 patent filings from the past two years were also accidents? Of course, it's quite likely that most other such accidents won't be noticed until long after Microsoft has been granted the patent. The link above, from W.B. McNamara, also explains how this likely happened, with Microsoft IP "experts" scurrying around to various meetings and copying down whatever they hear that they think might be patentable -- a practice that some large companies have taken to using since stockpiling as many patents as possible (no matter how ridiculous they might be) is considered an important business strategy. Many companies also reward employees for patent applications (or granted patents), which would put in place incentives for the folks listed on this particular patent to skip over the part where they tell the patent attorney about how they simply copied the idea from a product that's been on the market for many years.
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I think it can be a mistake...
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All in good defence
Think of it this way, everyone knows at the moment you can patent things you didn't invent, or that are completely trivial. So the only way to stop that is to patent them first. Even if Microsoft's patent application is rejected for prior art - then that means nobody else can go and patent it (and the patent office may have let it slip through the system even with prior art).
Microsoft's patent defense includes the fact it applied for a patent and got rejected.
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New from Google - Patent Search
http://www.google.com/patents
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Unjustified speculation
I doubt any company patent schemes which would be sufficient to justify that kind of speculation (usually the reward to the employee is pathetic), and I expect they would all have some defense against it - e.g. making the employee pay back the award - after all it is an obvious thing to anticipate.
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6y6
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