Mugander

Contributions to science and patents

Mugander,

Thank you for your contributions to science and patents. You raise some interesting issues regarding difference in the nature of peer review of scientific publications and patent publications. For now, though, I've moved your contribution here so that they can be developed a bit further. Statements like "Patents are sometimes confused with science", for example, should have a citation. Also, the statement that patents are granted strictly on "novelty" is not true.

As a US patent agent I would be happy to help you develop this article idea further so that it can be incorporated back into the main articles.--Nowa 12:35, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Response

Nowa,

Thanks for your great feedback. The reason I added the issue of "science and patents" is that the distinction between patents and science is something I've been thinking about a lot the past year. As a scientist (PhD) and an inventor (patent holder) I find the difference intriguing. I find from my personal experience that it is important to distinguish the two, both when talking to scientists about patenting inventions, and also when talking to inventors about the validity of citing patents as reference sources in peer reviewed scientific articles.

In my experience, scientists for example often erroneously think that all people that normally would qualify as co-authors of a scientific publication also qualify as inventors a patent. As you know, such is not the case.

Also, I have interacted with inventors who think their patents should be cited as references in scientific articles. However, most scientific journals will only allow cited references to peer reviewed publications in the scientific literature. Thus, a patent may not be referenced to as a justification for a scientific assertion. This is because a patent is not a claim that requires justification according to the scientific method. Hence, most patent attornies recommend scientists to first patent their idea and then publish the science behind their idea in a scientific journal.

So, I haven't been able to find a good citation for the statement "patents are sometimes confused with science". Would you know of a good source? I have adjusted the text below and I look forward to your continued help to develop the article idea further. --Mugander

Mugander, Thanks. Good ideas. To build on them, I think it's important to realize that patents are publications and as such are more directly comparable to scientific publications, not science as a whole. Perhaps we should focus on scientific literature and patents.

Alternatively, we could focus on the difference between science and invention. A good resource might be the Association of University Technology Managers--Nowa 02:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Revised suggested addition to science

There are important differences between science and a patent. A patent is applied for by an inventor and involves the disclosure an idea or invention (a device, method, process or composition of matter (substance)), and the application is granted based on whether the invention is new, inventive, and useful or industrially applicable.

By comparison, scientific publication by a scientist can also involve dislosure of an idea (hypothesis), but scientific publication also requires that the idea be tested according to the scientific method, and that the idea (conclusion) be substantiated by experimental data.

In contrast, patents neither require substantiation by data nor testing according to the scientific method. A patent can of course been granted to ideas which also have been substantiated scientifically. But, by definition, a patent is granted based qualities which do not necessarily require scientific sustantiation. Thus, even though many patents may be based on science, a patent is not by definition scientific.

Revised suggested addition to patent

A patent is not a scientific publication since it is not subjected to peer review. It is also not normally citable in a scientific publication for the same reason .

Suggested addition to scientific publication

The current article scientific literature indicates that some patents are citable as scientific literature. Do you agree or can you find a citation that contradicts? --Nowa 02:54, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Suggested contribution to peer review

It seems to me that a few words on patent examination might be a good addition to peer review and vice versa.

For example:

In many jurisdictions, patent applications undergo a form of peer review called patent examination. A patent examiner in a given patent office reads a patent application to determine if there are any aspects of the invention described by an inventor(s) which are new, involve an inventive step (EU and Japanese law) or are “not obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art of the invention” (US law). The examiner also determines whether or not the invention is described in sufficient detail so that another person of ordinary skill in the art of the invention can make and use the invention without “undue experimentation” (US law). If the patent examiner feels that the invention described in the patent application doesn't meet these criteria, then the examiner "rejects the claims". The inventors then have the opportunity to counter the examiner's position and/or to narrow the scope of the patent protection they are seeking. The arguments that inventors make, however, tend to be legal arguments and not scientific ones.

Every country or region (e.g. European patent office) does their own examination of a given patent application. Thus a patent application on the same invention may issue on one country, but not another. Some countries, such as Italy, don't do any patent examination. They merely publish patent applications. An inventor that wants to enforce his or her patent in that country must then prove in court that they are entitled to the patent.

Patent examiners have at least undergraduate degrees in the technologies they examine. They also undergo extensive on-the-job training in the legal requirements for patentability.

Any thoughts for an addition to patent prosecution on scientific peer review? --Nowa 13:07, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Your submission at Articles for creation: Clinical Physiology (September 30)

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Thank you for your contributions to Wikipedia! Kraftlos (Talk | Contrib) 05:14, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Clinical Physiology

I created this for you, but it still needs more work to get out of the stub stage, sort of like a seedling. Bearian (talk) 22:50, 24 October 2013 (UTC)