Re: [rp-ml] QuickParts online quoting (patent 7305367)

Todd, novelty is actually the easy part (almost anything qualifies as novel under US patent law). What is the more difficult hurtle is non-obviousness (though the Supreme Court has made it a little more clear that it cannot be trivial stuff). Anyway, it could well be argued that getting accurate quotes for various systems is not trivial or something that anyone (even someone knowledgeable in RP) could come up with in, say, an afternoon, without doing lots of experiments and trail and error ... which by itself would probably satisfy the non-obvious requirement. Anyway, no one should assume the patent isn't valid, without getting a formal opinion from a patent attorney (I wouldn't anyway). This list would, however, be a good resource for uncovering any "detailed" discussions of this prior to Dec. 13, 1999 and/or documenting such, since its been around since before 1996, I think. Did anyone talk about this on the RPML before 1999? Vague references and
 hand waving don't count though.

G. Sachs

----- Original Message ----
From: Todd Pederzani <tpederzani@protocam.com>
To: rp-ml@rapid.lpt.fi
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 12:01:32 PM
Subject: Re: [rp-ml] QuickParts online quoting (patent 7305367)

G. Sachs wrote:
Wim,
I am not an attorney, but I believe that merely providing a service to
people (that uses some proprietary method) without revealing the
details about how it works (i.e. algorithm, formulas, etc.), does not
make it public domain or impossible for someone else to patent (and
thus publicly disclosing HOW it is being done).
I am also not a lawyer, but isn't "novelty" one of the criteria for
patents, at least as explained to us lay-people? If someone is already
doing it, I'd think it would be hard to patent it... I think this
thread has served its purpose -- if someone is threatened with patent
infringement, their lawyer can research Materalise's OnSite service and
do lawyer-ly things to the QuickParts patent. More prior art wouldn't
hurt, however, if there is any.

-- 
Todd Pederzani          tpederzani@protocam.com
ProtoCAM                Information Technology
3848 Cherryville Road   Phone: (610) 261-9010
Northampton, PA 18067   Fax:   (610) 261-9350