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Second Press Release
U.S. Patent Office Publishes the
First Patent Application to Claim a Fictional Storyline; Inventor
Asserts Provisional Rights Against Hollywood
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will publish history’s
first “storyline patent” application today from an application
filed in November, 2003. Inventor Andrew Knight will assert
publication-based provisional patent rights against the
entertainment industry.
Falls
Church, Virginia, November 3, 2005 – Further to a policy of
publishing patent applications eighteen months after filing, the
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is scheduled to publish history’s
first “storyline patent” application today. The publication will
be based on a utility patent application filed by Andrew Knight in
November, 2003, the first such application to claim a fictional
storyline.
Knight, a rocket engine inventor, registered patent agent, and
graduate of MIT and Georgetown Law, will assert publication-based
provisional patent rights against anyone whose activities may fall
within the scope of his published claims, including all major
motion picture manufacturers and distributors, book publishers and
distributors, television studios and broadcasters, and movie
theaters. According to the official Patent Office website,
provisional rights “provide a patentee with the opportunity to
obtain a reasonable royalty from a third party that infringes a
published application claim provided actual notice is given to the
third party by [the] applicant, and a patent issues from the
application with a substantially identical claim.”
Before a patent will issue, however, the application must overcome
the hurdles of utility, novelty, and nonobviousness found in U.S.
patent laws. According to Knight, the utility requirement
addresses whether an invention falls within statutory subject
matter, while novelty and nonobviousness address whether the
invention is identical to or impermissibly similar to previous
inventions. That fictional storylines may be patentable was first
suggested in a November, 2004 article in the Journal of the
Patent and Trademark Office Society, “A Potentially New IP:
Storyline Patents.” The article argues that binding case law
strongly suggests that methods of performing and displaying
fictional plots, whether found in motion pictures, novels,
television shows, or commercials, are statutory subject matter,
like computer software and business methods.
Regarding the utility requirement, “The case law of the Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit has established that virtually any
subject matter is potentially patentable,” explained Jay Thomas,
Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Further, “Due to the
broad scope of patentable subject matter, novel storylines may
fall within the [utility requirement],” said Charles Berman,
Co-Chair of the Patent Prosecution Practice at Greenberg Traurig
LLP.
The
real issue? According to Berman, “Non-obviousness probably
presents the biggest challenge to patentability” because minor
variations on a central theme may generate so many different
storylines. Nevertheless, Knight asserts that his claimed
storyline meets all statutory requirements, including
nonobviousness.
The
fictitious story, which Knight dubs “The Zombie Stare,” tells of
an ambitious high school senior, consumed by anticipation of
college admission, who prays one night to remain unconscious until
receiving his MIT admissions letter. He consciously awakes 30
years later when he finally receives the letter, lost in the mail
for so many years, and discovers that, to all external observers,
he has lived an apparently normal life. He desperately seeks to
regain 30 years’ worth of memories lost as an unconscious
philosophical zombie.
Will
Knight’s claimed storyline pass the rigors of nonobviousness and
issue as a U.S. Patent? If so, the stakes are high. According to
Thomas, “Given the robust scope of patent protection provided by
the Patent Act… storyline patents potentially provide their owners
with a significant proprietary interest.”
The
U.S. Patent Office will publish subsequent storyline patent
applications, also invented by Knight, on November 17 and December
8 and 22.
For an information
packet, including a copy of the JPTOS article, contact
Andrew Knight or visit
www.PlotPatents.com.
Contact:
Andrew Knight, Proprietor
Knight and Associates
703-795-7375
http://www.PlotPatents.com
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