Re: patenting colimits?

[Toby Bartels <toby+categories@ugcs.caltech.edu>]

zoran skoda wrote in part:

>But in american law it is theoretically possible that in times when there
>was not  a single nuclear submarine, one registers a patent
>for the idea/concept nuclear submarine without
>any specific techincal details on construction.

This is a good example, since if you read Feynman's account
of how he didn't get the patent for that (but did for other things),
you can see how the ideas that he got patents for really *were*
"obvious at the time the invention was made to a person
having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains"
(to quote current law, which may have been different in 1945).
But of course, the patent office had no way of knowing that.

Here's an abbreviated account:
http://ipho2008.hnue.edu.vn/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=uwXCnR4Vj4E%3D&tabid=97&mid=723


--Toby


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