Can a company in the US that developed a technology, and kept it secret without patenting it keep other companies from patenting the same technology? Let's say company A developed a technology, but didn't apply for a patent in the US. Ten years later, Company B applies for a patent for the same technology. Can company A void the patent saying there's prior art that was kept secret by them?
No - prior art essentially means “published prior art”. If a company decides to keep something a trade secret rather trying to patent (this involves disclosure) they take a chance that someone else will independently invent and patent it. Under the 2012 AIA law in the US such a company can have limited rights to keep doing what they were doing, where they were doing it, to the extent they were doing it. From Wikipedia Prior art (state of the art or background art), in most systems of patent law, is constituted by all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that Prior art (state of the art or background art), in most systems of patent law, is constituted by all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. be relevant to a patent's claims of originality.
It just doesn’t happen. It is prohibited for a patent examiner to get a patent or any interest in a patent other than by inheritance Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 4, patent examiners, other Office employees, and Office officers may not apply for a patent or acquire any right or interest in any patent during the period of their employment with the Office and for one year thereafter. and a patent attorney would lose their USPTO registration and law license at a minimum for violating their oath. Very few inventions have the potential to make enough money to risk a career. You will need to trust in the professionalism of many people on the path to making your idea a profitable reality.
Designs in publications are prior art If a party publishes a design in any way to the public, no other party can patent it and the publishing party only has a narrow window to file for a patent if the jurisdiction even allows for that.1 However, a publication of the underlying material doesn't invalidate a previous patent. In fact, requesting a patent requires disclosure and publication. Academic publications do count as a publication of the mechanism and are grounds to void a patent filed after the publication date. 1 - In the US, there is a general timeframe for that, in other jurisdictions, such a timeframe is only given if the publication was to acquire a patent in a different country.
Unless you have a legally valid IP right related to the specification that statement is meaningless. When a software license is granted it is based on the copyright of the code. The copyright of the spec. just stops people from copying the spec - it does not protect the information in it. You can restrict copying of the spec. under copyright, you can make up a name for the spec (like USB or Bluetooth) and get a trademark and only allow the trademark use in limited cases(doesn’t stop implementation of the spec), or get a patent that would be necessarily infringed if something complying with the spec was created and used, sold, made, etc. or you can keep it secret and only show it to people who contractually agreed with your terms.
First, &quot;I've seen some people say it is legal to do so but I want a second opinion.&quot; This is not a legal opinion. This is only in response to the question &quot;Can you use (TM) on a product that is not Trademarked&quot;? Second, you did not specify a jurisdiction. Since you mentioned Apple, I will assume USA. tl/dr: Yes, you can used the TM mark and no, it is not fraudulent. In the USA, there are three &quot;trademark&quot; symbols, (R), (TM), and (SM). (R) - (Registered) The federal registration symbol. This may be used only once the mark is actually registered in the USPTO. It my not be used while the application is pending. (TM) - (Trademark) / (SM) - (Service Mark) - According to the United States Patent and Trademark Office: If you claim rights to use a mark, you may use the &quot;TM&quot; (trademark) or &quot;SM&quot; (service mark) designation to alert the public to your claim of a &quot;common-law&quot; mark. No registration is necessary to use a &quot;TM&quot; or &quot;SM&quot; symbol and you may continue to use these symbols even if the USPTO refuses to register your mark. Those symbols put people on notice that you claim rights in the mark, although common law doesn't give you all the rights and benefits of federal registration.
However, this uses the text "rights in an invention"; does that cover copyright? Yes. (Is this the correct law?) It certainly seems to be. Does "Relate … to the employer's business" cover the entirety of software engineering, or just the particular software engineering my employer does? Imagine that you work for a company that writes trading software. In your spare time, you develop a photo editing tool. Do you think a court would find that your project "related to the employer's business"? I do not. Or does my employer own copyright on everything down to the love letters I write? Google does not own everything their employees create; they only claim to. If someone challenged them on it, a court would decide, and probably not in their favor.
Protect against what? A US patent would, theoretically, let you try to stop anyone in the US from importing a product that infringes one of its claims. To try to stop manufacturer in an other location from producing a product and selling it other than in the US you either need a patent in the location if manufacture or or selling. Of course you can also try to accomplish this by contract with the manufacturer. They may honor a contract and to not sell other than to you. But if are wildly successful you won’t be able to stop a different manufacturer in China, Vietnam or anywhere else. One bit of advice might be to get good IP coverage for anything made, sold, offered for sale, imported or used in the US via US patents and be content with wild success in one of the largest markets protectable under one patent. Some people advocate breaking your design down into interconnectable components and have different makers in different areas make each with final assembly in the US. Others say just go fast and make money while you can. Also you can license to a big company with some clout and money for attorneys. You get much less per unit but push many costs and hassles to them.
Patents become enforceable when granted, not before. However there is something called provisional rights (absolutely nothing to do with provisional applications). In the US, under 35 USC 154(d), if a claim in a published application is “substantially identical” to a claim that eventually issues, a patent owner can get damages of at least a reasonable royalty on units produced between the publication and notice and the issue date. Enforcement on this must await the granting of the patent. The infringer must have actual notice of the published application. It is rarely invoked see this article.