Let's Make Nintendo Aware of Johnny Lee!

[alpha_dk]

Grey Acumen said:

alpha_dk said:
@dryden:

This is not now in the public domain. In order to get this idea in the public domain, he would need to do an expensive patent search, patent it, and then put the patent into the public domain (or, really, offer a non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevokable blanket patent to everyone on the planet). As it stands, if it is not yet patented, someone could walk into the patent office tomorrow, EVEN THOUGH he has already released this video, and patent this idea instead of him and thereby receive a patent for it. At this point, they would be able to sue anyone but him for patent violation, unless they have a documented earlier use of this technique to claim prior art; you cannot use someone else's prior art as your prior art, except to try and convince a judge that its an obvious extension of previous work to an expert in the field, which would be a hard thing to prove.

So in conclusion, IANAL:TINLA, but I wouldn't go around implementing this tech just yet and think you're safe... it in no way is in the public domain.

 Um, I'm not totally certain about that. Because he already has teh video out demonstrating that he's done this himself, and can provide documentation as to how the process is done, he would likely be able to contest any patents made by anyone else. that's how the patent office used to be, but anymore, I'm fairly certain that documentation of the actual development process is more important than just when you get to the patent office.

 You'd think so, wouldn't you?  Too bad it's not even clear-cut when Apple releases to the public an entire product line, and Microsoft is still able to file (and get) a patent on that product after it has launched.

Patent law is nothing to mess around with.  Try, and you'll more likely get burned than not.  Frankly, patent reform can't come soon enough.