Talk:Patent application

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[edit] Patent application

To my humble opinion, a patent application is not just a text, but the whole request and the subsequent process before the patent is granted (including the examination). This is why I merged the article "patent examination" in it. Hope nobody objects. --Edcolins 19:09, Jan 16, 2005 (UTC)

Merge looks good, but I view "application" as a set of documents (and requisite fees) which grows and changes during "patent prosecution", whereas the "examination" (and everything else that may possibly result from further handling by the parties) is part of the process of molding the application itself into one or more patents (or not). Just my $0.02 USD. Lupinelawyer 22:14, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Maybe there is a difference in the way the expression "patent application" is construed in Europe and in the States. In Europe, and in particular in the European Patent Convention, a European patent application can be withdrawn, deemed to be withdrawn, or refused... These expressions would make no sense to me (or at least they would be weird) if the patent application was only a set of documents. A patent application must contain a certain number of documents, but I would say the application is more than that, it is a legal right, that can be assigned, and so on. Are you convinced?

We could explain this in the article btw. --Edcolins 20:03, Jan 18, 2005 (UTC)

I think patent application is used in a number of senses - the process of applying, the entity that becomes a patent when it is granted, or the patent specification itself. I think the distinction is probably not that significant, provided it is clearly explained. I am going to attempt to merge Patent prosecution into Patent application as the two currently contain hugely overlapping material, and are somewhat unclear at the moment. Kcordina ^Talk 14:44, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I have created a temp page that I'm using to develop a new version of the article - Patent application/temp. Kcordina ^Talk 08:14, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Business method patents

I deleted business method patent as a type of patent application since it's not one of the statutory patents types at least in the US. A business method patent is a utility patent and has the same requirements for patentability. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nowa (talk • contribs).