Storyline Patent Application Published

[Seth Johnson]

> http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/11/emw303435.htm


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 (PRWEB) 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.

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