Patent Law 1. You join the product development team of Galaxy Enterprises Corpor
ID: 340015 • Letter: P
Question
Patent Law
1. You join the product development team of Galaxy Enterprises Corporation as the only patent engineer. The team is working on an invention for a new telescope. One of the members presents to you the results of a patentability search that, in her mind, shows that the invention is patentable. You inquire about the method she used to do the search and she tells you that she only included valid patents in her search, since expired patents can't be used to reject patent applications and therefore they do not need to be included in the search. Is she correct? Explain.Explanation / Answer
No, in this case she is not at all correct because while reviewing the application of patents, prior art is used which means that if the invention is already known, then there is no way it can be granted a patent because of obvious reasons as this will not be considered as an invention. Therefore in this case, even if the patent has expired long back it needs to be considered because of the presence of Prior Art concept.