DOES IT MAKE SENSE TO ACQUIRE PATENTS IN
A RAPIDLY CHANGING TECHNICAL FIELD ?

Many people have a vague notion that patents in a field undergoing rapid development are inherently susceptible to early obsolescence. Although many such patents will in fact become obsolete before they expire, other such patents may retain commercial value despite technical developments in the field.

There is a distinction between obsolescence of a product embodying an invention and obsolescence of a patent claim defining the invention. Although an embodiment of an invention wholly depends upon contemporaneous technology, a patent claim defining the invention may be relatively abstract and need not be limited to contemporaneous technology. For example, a patent claim for the first telephone reads:

. . . transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically, as herein described, by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sounds, substantially as set forth.

Communication technology has advanced considerably in the more than 100 years since the telephone was invented. Now, in the field of modern technology, of course the first implementation of the telephone would not be a viable product. The old patent claim recited above, however, may read on any telephone, including modern telephones employing computer, wireless, or satellite technologies.

1. The language quoted above is from claim 5 of a patent for the first telephone, which was the subject of an 1888 Supreme Court case called Dolbear v. American Bell Telephone Co.,126 U.S. 1, 533.