Intellectual property (IP) typically refers to property protected through patents, trademarks, copyrights, or trade secrets. As inventors and innovators, chemists need to consider various aspects of business to carry through their idea to the marketplace.
Shankar Manyem and Christine A. Goddard, Fish & Richardson P.C., Boston, USA, reviewed the book Writing Chemistry Patents and Intellectual Property – A Practical Guide by Francis J. Waller, Senior Research Associate at Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., Pennsylvania, USA, and Adjunct Professor at Lehigh University, Pennsylvania.
The book provides an overview of IP and describes patents in greater detail. The nice thing is according to Manyem and Goddard, that all this is done with the chemical inventors and entrepreneurs in mind. For a novice chemist or someone with a high activation energy barrier to non-scientific subjects, this book provides a smooth segue into IP.
Except for one chapter on global filing, most of the book is written in the context of US patent law. Manyem and Goddard say that this should not be a huge deterrent to the global readers since many patentability criteria are somewhat similar and might not hinder the understanding at the level the book is directed to.
Overall, they recommend the book for a good basic review of the various forms of IP protection and to allow the reader to have a more coherent interaction with a patent agent or IP attorney. But they note that the title of the book does not truly reflect the content as there is not enough material to help the reader draft a patent application.
Read the full review at:
- Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51(27), 6565.
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201202629 
Writing Chemistry Patents and Intellectual Property – A Practical Guide
F. J. Waller,
John Wiley & Sons, New York, USA, 2011.
ISBN: 978-0-470-49740-1
Also of interest:
- F. Waller on Intellectual Property for Chemists,
Jonathan Rose,
Francis Waller talks about common intellectual property issues for chemists from his 30 years experience of filing patents
