RE: Patents and trade secrets

[David Van Wie <dvw@hamachi.epr.com>]

> > Many technologies have both patented parts and trade secret parts. 
 Often,
> > companies will maintain information that is in patent applications as 
trade
> > secret until they are granted.  I guess I should say _if_ they are 
granted!
>
> But don't they have to put something on the patent application?  Can they
> claim trade secret status for something that was on a patent application,
> but rejected?  That seems like they're getting it both ways.  They should
> probably have to choose whther or not they want to show anyone their
> "secret".  If not, it stays a trade secret.  If so, it's not a secret 
anymore,
> and they hope it's "nonobvious, etc." enough to be granted a patent.

Sure, they have to put their "best mode" of performing their invention into 
the patent application.  While the patent is pending (at least in the US), 
the patent application is confidential, so if the patent is denied, or if 
the patent is not as broad as the inventor would have liked, they can 
withdraw the application without the information contained in it ever 
becoming public.  In Europe, publication occurs automatically after 18 
months, so the inventor has less time there to make a go/no go decision, but 
they can still do it.

In some respects, the existing system gives you most of what you want -- if 
you can't get patent protection for an idea, you can fall back on trade 
secret protection (which you didn't have to give up just to try to get a 
patent).  It seems pretty harsh to me that just making a stab at getting a 
patent would mean that all of your hard work could just slip away into the 
public domain if it wasn't quite up to snuff.  Sure would make me swallow 
hard....

dvw