¶ Invention
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Index Entry
Invention:
"In the competitive world of money-making, discoveries are looked upon as exploitable and monopolizable claims to be operated as private properties of big business. As a consequence, the world has come to think of both discoveries and patents as monopolized property.
"This popular viewpoint developed during the last century, when both corporations and government supported by courts have required individuals working for them to assign to them the patent rights on any discoveries or inventions made while in their employ. Employees were to assign these rights during, and for two years after termination of, their employment, whether or not the invention had been developed at home or at work.
“The drafting of expert patent claims is an ever more specialized and complex art, involving expensive legal services usually beyond the reach of private individuals. When nations were remote from one another, internal country patents were effective protection. With today’s omniproximities of the world’s countries, only world-around patents costing hundreds”
