A company independently develops an innovation and they discover
later that it has been patented by a competitor. The competitor did
not steal or reverse-engineer that innovation – they simply
arrived at it independently, and got to the patent office first.
What are the issues and strategies for inventors when navigating
the different options for intellectual property protection?
There is a risk that if a company neither publishes the
innovation, nor files for a patent, a competitor might
independently arrive at the innovation and take out a patent. Thus
the original innovator could be at risk of becoming unable to use
their own innovation.
Likewise, even if the competitor does not take out a
patent for what they also (later) innovated, but rather themselves
use the innovation, then the resulting situation might still be
worse for the original innovator's failure to make the
improvements known to the entire industry. For example, in
situations where the competitor
