The Reason I asked was Way Back-in-the-Day I knew someone who pursued a Patent on doing "Floating Point" calculations.
They way He explained it to me was that Floating Point wasn't Patentable, but the Type of Circuits and the Way the 1's and 0's was manipulated was.
I'm not an Expert on Patents. But I know that a Patent is Only as good as the Holder chooses to Defend a Patent. So I am curious how things work seeing that Many OEM's have Circuit Boards that alter Fixed Voltage into VW.
Ok, I asked my friend that works at the patent office, this is basically what he said:
The first thing you need to know is that the only thing that truly matters is what is actually claimed in the claims section.
The figures 6 and 7 that you refer to are only drawings contained in the "specification" section. They are not what is actually claimed as the invention
the claims are what the applicant is claiming as the actual invention.
The rest of the specificaiton is more or less to provide context and background so that one can understand what the claims mean.
It is just background info to help you understand the claims. They were not trying to claim that part as the invention.
Now the next thing to know is the difference between indepdenent claims and dependent claims
the independent claim are claims 1, 11, 19, and 23. The other claims depend upon the independent, for instance, all of the limitations in claim 1 are present in claim 2. Its like claim 2 is additional limitations on top of what claim 1 is, so they are also claiming and get protection on that. That is to prevent people from getting an improvement patent, essentially anyway.
But they do have protection on the broader indepdent claim.
Now, to be honest, it looks kind of broad. I think I would have been able to reject this under a §103 analysis. But it isn't my area, nor my patent, so it isn't my call.
So if your friend or whoever it is, can do this in a different way than what claim 1 states, then yes, they are good. But if it falls within claim 1 limitations, then they can get sued.
If they have an improved way they can get a patent on it. However, this company can still prevent your friend from marketing it, because they have the broad patent. But, the company could not sell your friends idea either without his permission (if he had a patent on it).
Well keep in mind that a patent does not mean that you have absolute rights
a patent just means that you have presumed rights
patents can be invalidated by the court
For instance, this is a very broad patent. This means it is useful to sue people as a lot of peopel would fall within this.
But it has a 2012 date. So if you could find evidence of something prior to the filing date, of something doing it this way, you could invaldiate the patent.
But yeah, that is the thing about patents. If they really are the first one to do something, they try to claim so broadly that everything falls within it.
The idea is, if you invent the narrow, you must have invented the broad as well.
This line of thinking works well in mechanical stuff, but not computer oriented stuff
so its dated logic, but the laws have not been updated
Anyway, back to that particular patent, it is pretty broad. It looks to me that they have the patent on the idea itself.
I mean look at this:
"A method to simulate smoking with an electronic vaporizer device and a cartridge, comprising:
regulating a power level delivered to a heating element of a cartridge connected to an electronic vaporizer device, for vaporizing a material within the cartridge during a simulated smoking session, substantially to a user-selected wattage setting during activation of the electronic vaporizer device to provide a consistent quantity and quality of vapor during the simulated smoking session."
If this were challenged in court it would get thrown out, they pretty much claimed all adjustable wattage on ecigs, not a particular way of doing it.
I cannot give particular client type advice. But this patent looks like its too broad for its own good.
They might use this to scare people. To send cease and desist letters out, but if anyone actually went court over there, any competent patent attorey should be able to find evidence to sink this patent.
