We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 July 2009
When I have a new trainee, on his first day I tell him … two things. The first is you do exactly the same when writing a story – you collect the facts and you must give them a structure, the structure of the claims. And if you are a good author, then that is the first requirement. The technical element you can learn from the person who comes to you – there is no need to know anything about the topic you are working on. But then when preparing a case you have to convince the examiner of the merits of the invention. And that is not a point of technical ability but of psychology.
Introduction
Whilst amongst a group of postgraduate IP students, I made a statement which I thought was relatively non-controversial: that getting patent protection was not too difficult. The law students, almost as one, let out a groan of dispute which clearly suggested that they considered me wrong. Is this a view that most lawyers hold? Perhaps more comfortable with the substantive law of patenting rather than the technology being discussed – noting the seeming highly technical nature of the patent specifications and concluding that it must ‘all be very difficult’ indeed? It is not clear why the students viewed patent examination as such a significant hurdle to overcome.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
