If I don&#39;t patent my invention, how closely can a competitor copy my product? Introduction: I had an idea for how to make a certain product much better. I'm currently in the prototyping stage for a product based on that idea. That idea (the solution to the problem of improving that product in certain ways) is patentable according to all the stuff I read about patents. But patents are really expensive: My primary market would be western Europe (member states of the European Patent Convention) and possibly later the US, that would cost a 4-digit USD amount upfront and in total a 5-digit amount within a couple of years, as far as I can tell. So I'm evaluating the possibility of just keeping my invention secret until I'm ready to sell a product based on it and then publishing the full details to make sure no one else can patent it. Question: But when I'm selling such a product: Would competitors need to design a new product based on my idea, involving all the prototyping and too easy to patent but still not trivial problems - or would it be legal to take my product apart, put the parts in a 3D scanner and produce the exact same product? Where is the border between what is allowed and what not, exactly? Hypothetical example: Say I found a new method to make car chassis more aerodynamic. There are certain equations and methods which are applied during the development process, and to keep anyone else from patenting them, I publish them (in my case, the invention is obvious from the final product). Are the competitors allowed to take the chassis I developed and use that, or do they need to design their own using my methods?
Without a patent, your inventions are not protected (except as trade secrets). If you publish your findings, anyone can use them. It is possible to patent the specific design of your chassis. Design patents, which cover the specific aesthetic design of something, can be less expensive than utility patents, which cover functional aspects. Although your chassis is designed with functionality in mind, it will also embody an aesthetic design. That said, enforcement of patent rights (or any other rights you might hope protect your chassis) is orders of magnitude more expensive (typically millions of dollars) than merely obtaining a patent. Thus, even if you do obtain protection for the chassis design or the method of designing it, your budget may make it impractical to effectively take advantage of those protections, unless a law firm is willing to take the case on contingency.
In Germany, there is no concept that corresponds directly to public domain. You automatically hold the Urheberrecht (~ copyright) for all creative works that you make, and it can't be given up or transferred (§29 UrhG). The work only enters the Gemeinfreiheit (~public domain) 70 years after your death. You can however license Verwertungsrechte (economic usage rights). When you make creative works in the course of employment (see §43 UrhG), your employer automatically gets the Verwertungsrechte necessary in the context for the work, which is typically an exclusive right (no one else, not even you, can use the work). Your are not in an employment relationship with your school, so it has no rights to your works and cannot prevent you from publishing them on copyright grounds. When you see advice on the internet to check with your school first, that is U.S.-specific advice. Since you're still a minor (7–17), you only have limited capacity to enter contracts or legal transactions (bedingte Geschäftsfähigkeit). While you are able to make transactions involving your own means (e.g. buying something with your pocket money) or make transactions that are only to your benefit (such as accepting a gift), other transactions are schwebend unwirksam (~ pending ratification), until your parents agree. The relevant law is in §107 and §108 BGB. This is a problem with open source licenses. If you publish software under a license, this license is schwebend unwirksam. Someone might start using the software under the license. But then if your parents refuse ratification, the license would be invalid, and everyone would have to stop using your software and destroy any derivative works they made. This is a bit of a problem, especially since open source licenses are otherwise assumed to be irrevocable. So if you want to offer a license (including open source licenses), please give legal certainty to the recipients of the license and ask your parents for their consent first, possibly even in writing. Per §107 BGB, the license you offer with their consent will be valid.
Yes, technology patents are useful. Regarding the Amazon patent you referred to, it only covers Amazon's one-click ordering (and similar single-action ordering), and it is immensely valuable to Amazon. Their competitors (essentially, anyone who sells things online) would love to use a similar system, but to do so, they must either pay Amazon a licensing fee or risk being sued for patent infringement. Beyond the value that patents can bring in court or at the negotiation table, and the value that they can have in dissuading potential competitors from taking away your business, patents can also have great defensive value. Some technology companies amass vast collections of patents for defensive purposes. They do not necessarily plan to sue anyone for patent infringement, but if one of their competitors were to sue them, they have the arsenal to effectively countersue.
You have a false premise: "it offers the same conditions", and "MIT license is functionally equivalent to CC-BY". These premises are not true. CC-BY: applies to more than just software; it applies to artistic or literary work, databases, other material disclaims endorsement explicitly withholds moral rights explicitly does not license patent rights (MIT license gives anyone who obtains a copy of the software the right to use it, a patent right) prescribes the acceptable forms of attribution Those are just some of the differences.
"Pastiche" is a literary, not a legal term, and as a professional coder, I would not use it to describe code that to some extent imitated other code. The legal question here is: is your code a derivative work of the code it is based on, and if it is, did you have permission to make that work. Copyright, in an Berne Convention country, which includes the EU, does not protect ideas and concepts, it protects expression. It protects the choices of words and symbols, and other forms of expression. If all you did was study example code, presented for educational purposes, and then write code that performs a similar function, using the same general techniques, then I don't think you have infringed copyright. That, after all, is why people post code to Stack Overflow and similar sites, to allow them to learn how to use specific coding techniques, including in commercial projects. I have used techniques posted to SO to do coding as part of my paid job. The usual test for copying under US law is "substantial similarity". This takes into account cases where there is essentially only one way to say or code something. I don't know the exact tests under the various laws of various EU countries, and they will not all be the same. But I suspect that on this point they are, well, substantially similar :). I can't advise on your specific situation. But if it is as described, I don't think you have a problem.
Before the AIA in 2012 both companies could apply for a patent and if one of the applicants thought they were both trying to patent the same thing they could initiate an interference proceeding. In that proceeding before the board, they each present their evidence as to date of conception and diligent effort from that point to the date of the first filing. The board decided which application went forward. Now the U.S. is with the rest of the world in first-to-file. It doesn’t matter who conceived first unless one actually stole the idea from the other. There is a new derivation procedure to try to prove that. I don’t think it has ever yet happened. One of the &quot;simultaneous&quot; inventors could publish the invention, putting into the public domain. If published before the other's filing date, it would theoretically prevent the other from getting a patent. In any case a patent owner can stop the other from making their product or charge a royalty. There is a narrow case under the AIA where one company has been using a process that another later patents and can retain a limited right to keep using that process but can’t move or expand operations. This is called Prior User Rights.
Patenting a new invention doesn't extend the term of the patent on the old invention. The later patent covers the new parts of the new invention, but not the parts that were in the old patent. The whole point of patents is to provide protection against even independent reinvention for a limited time, after which the invention becomes free to use for everyone (and since you disclose how it works in the patent, other people actually can use it themselves).
A GPS trace of a car's path, on its own, is unlikely to be covered by copyright in the first place. It is primarily made up of facts (the locations of roads and lanes), and there is no creativity involved in its creation. A database of facts may be protected by copyright as a compilation if there is some amount of creativity in how it is assembled, but this does not extend any protection to the individual contents of the database (cf. Feist v. Rural).