Well, he can keep his patent. No one is going to pay money to see a movie about a guy who's that anxious to get into MIT.

Chick with a dick? Could you give us a second clue, please?

Shouldn't that have been copyrighted, instead of patented?

You can have that one. I want dibs on "a bunch of inept kids are paired with a lovable loser of a coach and achieve their athletic dreams" and a hot one I'm working on "a tale of star-crossed lovers."

Shouldn't that have been copyrighted, instead of patented?

I agree, Dogstar. I thought copyright protection went for 100 years, while patent protection went for 20. I've got a couple of patents, but I can't see an advantage for an author to patent (presumably in addition to copyrighting). The article says there are extra protections - could one of our resident attorneys tell us what those might be?

Maybe I should copyright my next invention: "look a the design, it's art!!"

It's important to note that this is NOT A PATENT being issued. It is a PATENT APPLICATION being published. Big difference.

Patent applications are not patents. They are, well, applications for patents. Getting an application published is as easy as filling out the application, submitting the appropriate paperwork, and paying the fees. Anyone can do it. No attorney even required. And if you don't tell the USPTO not to publish the application, they will publish it, since the application is a filing of public record.

This means NOTHING as far as an actual patent is concerned.

To give a sense of how this works, I and some co-inventors filed a handful of patents 5 years ago. We filed them "secretly" at first, and now they are public. After 5 years, they are just now getting around to examining them. And now they are asking for "more information". My point being, there can be a very long gap between "I filled out the patent application" and "I was granted a patent", if the patent is ever granted at all.

Makes for great publicity, though. Official-looking government document. You're on the USPTO web site and everything, even got a "number". You can even legally say "Patent Pending". And you indeed must defend your "provisional patent rights" as the 'inventor' indicates he will.

But it is NOT a patent. It is kind of like getting a marriage license and not having gotten married yet. Big whoop.

Mark

Mark,

I agree - the article is, after all, a press release by the patent firm, and it is just a provisional. But do you see any advantage in patents over copyrights (other than doubling the business for attorneys)? Seems to me the legal case and benefits would be far better for going the other way (getting copyrights for inventions).

I wish someone *could* patent the most cliched ideas, just to keep them out of circulation. If I never read another high fantasy story about a girl who can talk to dragons, it will be too soon. Bonus points for girls from cartoonishly misogynist societies who can talk to dragons. Extra bonus if they can't use "thee" and "thou" correctly. And horror stories about serial killers get old pretty fast too.

The trouble is that once in a while somebody takes a stale-ass storyline and turns it into a story that will knock your socks off. So maybe patenting isn't the way to go - at least, not until I finish my incredibly original new story about "a cloning experiment gone horribly wrong"!

Geoff

Seems to me that a patent would allow the collection of royalties from all the people who created works covered by your patent. They would still be allowed to make those works, but they would have to pay the inventor bux for every instance of the patent. Every copy of the work. So monetarily, a patent could mean more than a copyright.

With a copyright you'd have to sue for damages, and go to court over the amount. With a patent, you just have to say, pay me seven cents per view of the movie so I don't have to take you to court.

A patent could be a better way to make money off other people copying your work, with you doing none of the work. If you're a hack writer with a good idea, then you'll make more money off a patent than a copyright, generally speaking.

Not that I think patents on stories is a good idea.

Mark

With a copyright you'd have to sue for damages, and go to court over the amount.

My understanding of patent litigation (which, fortunately, I've only had described to me), is that when I violation of patent rights occurs, you also have to sue and have the court assess damages.

Geoff

Yes. But the way it usually works is that under threat of litigation, the parties agree to a royalty fee and the inventor lets the infringer continue to manufacturer the (formerly) infringing item.

Or alternatively, lawsuits don't occur, and the inventor licenses the patent outright, again for a royalty.

But the licensee has to do all the work of manufacturing, distribution, sales, etc. The inventor just sits back and collects checks.

This arrangement is not common in copyrights. If you lose a copyright case, you generally have to stop publishing the infringing work. The royalty stream would dry up. You could license the right to copy your work, of course, but then YOU have to do all the work of actually writing the pesky words.

All theoretical, of course. Patents aren't technically allowed on stories. Yet. We'll see...

Mark

This is the same patent office who issued a patent decades ago for how a mouse cursor is drawn on a screen though.

Any programmer with a half a brain would use the XOR method described in the patent, because well...XOR is obviously the most efficient way to do it. any other scheme would be grossly inefficient.

Sonetka, you are so, so right. What is it with the wise, nurturing, pacifist dragons? Also, as Ace noted, vampires who are beautiful, pale, brooding, byronic anti-heroes are terribly overdone.

"Patents aren't technically allowed on stories."

Not true. I have a patent for my "Lovable deaf/mute boy learns to communicate by using the awesome power of his balls" storyline.

My company recently won a patent lawsuit against another manufacturer. As part of the settlement the offending company had to destroy all of their products that used our design. So they were out the cost of manufacturing, the cost of the lawsuit, and they had to pay some people to destroy their products as well. Throw the cost of shipping into the mix too. We also got proof of destruction just in case they decided to try pulling a fast one.

I think we wanted to burn their factory down and pour salt on the earth, but the judge thought that was a bit too much.

This screenplay story looks a lot like the one I sent to a well known blogger 2 days ago, but I never heard back from him.

"Patents aren't technically allowed on stories."

Not true. I have a patent for my "Lovable deaf/mute boy learns to communicate by using the awesome power of his balls" storyline

Andrew, I stand corrected.

And I guess I owe you $0.07, too. Your royalty check is in the mail.

What if you patented certain types of crimes?

Or maybe a particular vacation route, covering two dozen landmarks in almost as many states, including the order visited, amount of time spent, etc.?

Damn, I smell some big, big money...

Well, if a patent does get allowed for this thing, its not for the play itself. If this thing is the same as certain patents on computer programs, it comes under the idea that the arrangement of ink on paper that the screen writer has composed is itself novel.

I will check my books on this, but the sad thing is, its ink on paper arranged in this order. But who knows, the Court of Appeals for the Fed. Cir. has been pretty open with what comprises a patent, "anything under the sun created by man," so they say. But who knows, I am just enjoying a redskins win, and a few beers. As far as I know, I am writing in the area reserved for the size of the Chinese amphibious assault fleet. Those diesels better be busy, because an aegis cruiser will sink those phib-bitches fast.

As previously mentioned, the protection is only for 20 years, not quite as hard core as a copyright. So way to go, clever guy.