Has the patent process been patented? After reading What topics can I ask about here? in Patents SE I've decided this question is off-topic there, so I'll ask here. Has there been an application for a process patent for the patenting process itself? It would probably be beneficial to license it freely, but I'm just curious if such an application has been filed, and if so, if one was granted.
Yes, in a sense. One patent is US 7444589 Automated patent office documentation by AT&amp;T. Another is US 6434580B1 System, method, and recording medium for drafting and preparing patent specifications from NEC. In most locations patents on a business method are not allowed but, although controversial, they are allowed in the U.S. Of course the fundamental requirement for patentablity is to be new. Since patenting itself is very old any patent on the topic would need to cover some narrow aspect, like the AT&amp;T and NEC patents. I do not understand the assumption that such a patent would necessarily be licensed freely.
In the US, you have a 1 year grace period from the time of public disclosure to the deadline for filing the patent application. This can lead to a US patent, which can be used to sue anyone infringing the patent within the US. However, most foreign countries do not offer this grace period, and so the possibility of protection in these countries for the matter disclosed in the arxiv publication has been lost.
What you're talking about is called black-box reverse engineering. It can be done, and as long as you are meticulous in your record keeping the fact that it has been done should be an appropriate defence against copyright infringement. But that doesn't help against patent claims - while in copyright cases the fact that code has or has not been directly copied is critical, in patent cases it its irrelevant: if you use a patented method, it's a violation. You therefore will need to be careful about any patents that may have been issued to the original author, as well as avoiding copying.
Of course windmills/turbines in general are not new and one would not need a license or permission to make and sell a &quot;generic&quot; wind turbine. But there are new types of wind mills invented and patented all the time. Examples are US7821148B2 Wind turbine and US8441138B2 Wind turbine. Patents are complicated and an inventor of a new type of windmill might need to license other people's patents that are broader in order to be able to make their new invention. Most windmill inventions are to improvements in components. It is a very rich field. As a small example, I helped a client get a patent on a device that is attached inside a windmill tower that prevents maintenance workers hitting their heads on part of the structure as they climb up. The second part of your question was how you can protect an invention you might make. Technology can be protected by patents both design and utility and some things might be able to be kept trade secrets (but not both for the same thing).
A pending patent has no legal effect. It only has effect if it is granted, and software patents are very hard to obtain these days. Also, any legitimate claimant to a patent would provide the Patent and Trademark Office patent pending number, allowing you to verify that there really is a filing and to alert the PTO if there have been misrepresentations made about who the inventor of the patented item is in fact. Lying on a patent application can have severe consequences.
In your example is the spare part the subject of a design patent? I assume it is not. When you combine the spare part to create a “different product” does the finished product resemble the drawings in the design patent? If, in its intended use, the final thing is close enough to the design patent to fall within its scope then you might by indirectly infringing by inducing people to infringe. The scope of a design patent is very difficult to determine reliably. This has nothing to do with how you got the components of your product, just how the completed thing looks. Copyright does not cover products (unless it is a model of a building or a statue or mold for a statue).
From what I can see on the USPTO registry, &quot;tweet&quot; is still not trademarked for the purposes you're talking about. Twitter has been working to secure that trademark, but I can't find any record of them having actually secured it. Just the same, I'd predict that using it will get you at least a cease-and-desist letter, and possibly a lawsuit. Whether you'd win that case seems to be a very open question, but that presumes you have the resources to litigate.
This seems to be a mix of question about law and a meta-question about this site, but I'll treat it as an on-topic question about law. The author of a question, or answer, owns the copyright to their contributions, and they can re-publish to their heart's content. Any user who posts here grants a license to SE and other users to use content posted here, so I don't have to ask you permission to quote you. As part of the permission granted by SE to use this website, you have agreed to &quot;follow the rules&quot; set by SE. There are many rules, some spelled out more clearly that others. For example, if you post a question, you indirectly agreed that your content can be upvoted or down-voted. Certain content can be &quot;closed&quot; and deleted, when the content is deemed to violate the rules in particular ways (is spam, porn, abuse, or judged to be poor-quality). Judgment (on different matters) can be rendered by community managers, moderators, or other users. The agreement is here, see especially here. If we take the post that you linked to, it is quite possible that it was deleted because it is not a general legal question, in violation of the acceptable use policy. If you want a historical analysis of your particular case, it should be asked on Law Meta.