1. Thomas McEntee on October 18, 2011 1:36 PM writes...

35 years ago, when I was thinking about alternate careers, I took the ACS audio course on chemistry patents, 6 or 8 tape cassettes, a course manual, etc. I suppose it was decent course for the time but I have no basis for saying this...the companies I worked for had Patent Law units which handled everything. Much of my work was in process chemistry, and process patents for batch manufacturing of APIs and intermediates can be bears to enforce.

But on the subject of Amazon and books, why are students taking Organic Chemistry this year forced to buy the new & improved 38th edition of a textbook, rather than use last year's 37th edition? We all the answer....the publishers and authors have a financial stake in this churning. And this scam goes well-beyond chemistry. Why can't upgrades to college textbooks be issued like software version releases and patches? Buy a legal copy of Adobe Acrobat and you qualify for some run of upgrades and patches. Anyone ever hear of such an idea? It sounds like something that Jeff Bezos at Amazon could have some influence on with the publishing sector.

2. Derek Freyberg on October 19, 2011 2:41 PM writes...

Derek:

If you'd like someone with a professional background in chem/pharm patent law (30 years) to look at it, please contact me, dfreyberg-at-sbcglobaldotnet, and I'll be happy to do so and return comments to you: just not willing to spend $70+ for 250 pages.

3. bad wolf on October 20, 2011 6:44 AM writes...

#2--no cash on hand: always the sign of a successful lawyer.

4. Chris on October 20, 2011 7:50 AM writes...

I was "Looking inside" on Amazon, so don't take this as anything close to a full review of this book. But as someone who is a patent agent who works in chemistry, I find some of the material to be dissociated from the actual practice of obtaining chemical patents. In a sense, the advice is not really very "practical" and by no means equips one to write such a patent, though as Derek says it may be good background knowledge.

For example, page 56: "it is important not to receive a 101, 102, or 103 rejection". I have never seen a case in which a chemical patent proceeded to allowance without triggering at least one of these (mostly 103). In fact, I would argue that an application that did not at least initially receive such a rejection probably did not cover the inventive concept broadly enough.

As another example, the book contains but a single sentence (p. 176) relevant to genus-species issues, which is the core concept of most 103 rejections in chemical practice. e.g. "There's this paper written in Russian from 1973 that has a molecule like yours, except the methyl is in the 5 position -- but otherwise it is a lot like your molecules, so your whole genus is obvious." And there is also scant reference to the ubiquitous restriction requirements (I've heard of as many as _105_ inventions in one application being required to be divided, and fees paid, in some chemical inventions).

I'm not saying don't read this book, but it is only a start. There a lot of traps for the unwary in chemical patent practice.