" Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.
"
-- Proverbs 29:18, King James Bible (KJV)
How Xerox’s Intellectual Property Prevented Anyone From Copying Its Copiers: The company used patents and trademarks to develop a line of machines based on inventor Chester Carlson’s ‘electrophotography’
Timely for U.S. Independence Day celebration on July 4, the history of the American invention of Xerography and the paradox intellectual property story of Xerox
,
and " Xeroxing
" ( copying by machine, photocopying
) is nicely told by an article just published by Jessica Silbey at the Smithsonian Magazine online
. The first xerographic copy ever made -- on a piece of wax paper -- "[is] today ... displayed in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History
".In an article which, for better understanding, should be read in full by everyone dealing with documents and the the written word in our modern era, Silbey writes
[not in the order in which the quotations are quoted here] about "the story of the Xerox machine" as a microcosm of IP issues: "The story of the Xerox machine is a microcosm of debates surrounding the proper purpose and scope of intellectual property and an object lesson in how irreconcilable dualities inform the everyday practice of intellectual property.
" [T]he intellectual property that protected the Xerox machine forbids copying and yet the Xerox machine is used to make copies.
" [emphasis added by LawPundit]
"It is ironic that the original copy-machine that could not be copied was built to make copies—copies of texts, photographs, and even instructions for making or using copying machines. And for this reason, although Xerox closely protected its patents from infringement by competitors, the patented technology facilitated infringement of other intellectual property, such as copyrights. It took the 1984 Supreme Court decision Sony Corporation of America v. Universal City Studios
[" the Betamax case
" on " fair use"
-- note and links added here by LawPundit]
concerning the legality of the video-cassette recording (VCR) machine to clarify that the makers of the copy-machines such as the Xerox, as well as of other “staple articles of commerce” such as cameras, typewriters, and audio recorders, were not liable for their contribution to copyright infringement stemming from the use of the copy-facilitating invention.
[emphasis added by LawPundit]
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but is appended automatically by the Smithsonian mag website to texts quoted from Smithsonian Magazine online -- as above -- so we have left the links below intact as to the main direct, removing, however, any personal information as to us as the source. Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/how-xeroxs-intellectual-property-prevented-anyone-from-copying-copiers-180972536/
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on Twitter
The Stanford Legal Aggregate has just published an article by Professor Lisa Larrimore Ouellette
titled Science Fiction: Fictitious Experiments in Patents
.According to present law in force, as unbelievable as it sounds, patents can be based on fictitious "prophetic examples" and can rely on completely hypothetical results, which do not even have to be identified as such in patent documents.Fordham Law News in Fictitious Data, Real Patents
by Nate Svogun writes:" While government law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies don't take kindly to false or misleading information, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office allows pie-in-the-sky claims when it comes to the potential uses of a particular patent....
The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) and the courts explicitly permit made-up experiments and fictional data in patents.
"Indeed, contemporary patent laws and court decisions have created a windfall world for patent holders, as patent grants have gone far beyond the protections imagined for inventors and their discoveries by the American Founders.The US Constitution
provides:" Article I Section 8. Clause 8 – Patent
and Copyright Clause of the Constitution
. [The Congress shall have power] “ To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
”
Well, let us ask, what in our modern era is now a patentable "discovery"?As written at Legal Aggregate
:" (This article was first published in Science on June 14, 2019.) Although it may surprise scientists, one can receive a patent in many jurisdictions without implementing an invention in practice and demonstrating that it works as expected. Instead, inventors applying for patents are allowed to include predicted experimental methods and results, known as prophetic examples, […]
"The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Eureka Alert! News Release of June 13, 2019 titled Clarifying the fictional science of prophetic patents: Labels needed?
writes:" In a Policy Forum, Janet Freilich and Lisa Larrimore Ouellette highlight the common practice of including "prophetic" examples in patents - particularly in the fields of chemistry and biology, where patents routinely describe the outcomes of experiments that have not been conducted
- and suggest labels in patents, to better call out such examples.
" [emphasis added by Law Pundit]We quote Freilich & Ouellette in USPTO should require prophetic examples to be clearly labeled to avoid confusion
as posted June 18, 2019 by Lisa Larrimore Ouellette to Written Description
:" Prophetic examples may be familiar to patent drafters, but scientists and engineers who learn about them generally describe them as bizarre, and even some patent scholars are unfamiliar with the practice.
"Our opinion is that it is high time in patent law -- and it has been high time for decades -- to reduce the granting of patents to discoveries actually made and implemented
and not to the patenting of ideas or future expected results, which has always been forbidden by law in principle. Prophetic examples are ideas, not discoveries, and should play zero role in the granting of patents.
