| ▲ | regularfry 18 hours ago |
| I seem to remember that the SpiRobs paper behind the (extremely neat) tentacle mechanism indicated that they were going for a patent. |
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| ▲ | ethan_smith 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| The SpiRobs team did file a patent (US20210170594A1) for their pneumatic continuum robots in 2019, which was published in 2021 but appears to still be pending approval. |
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| ▲ | lukeinator42 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| If it's described in a paper doesn't that make it prior art though? |
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| ▲ | blamestross 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | Not if it is the authors of the paper filing for the patent. Otherwise people would never publish papers. | | |
| ▲ | jameshart 17 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Patents are intended to be the form of first public disclosure of an idea. Disclosing it before patenting it can prevent the patent application being valid. US has a 1 year grace period. In most countries, any public disclosure makes an idea unpatentable. https://outlierpatentattorneys.com/patent-public-disclosure | |
| ▲ | varispeed 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This always grinds my gears. For some people "discoveries" are so obvious, they don't bother writing a paper let alone patenting it. Then someone goes and patents it... | | |
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