Q: I read my patent has to be "novel" - but my idea is building off of
something else that already exists - how would that work?
A:
That is fine. Pretty much every invention somehow builds on what already exists.
But not only does your invention be new (novel, i.e., nobody has ever made the same thing), but it has to be really new (nonobvious, i.e., nobody could have come up with the same thing knowing what they already know). It is the non-obviousness that is a bigger problem in most cases.
A: I used to work for a firm that defended the Bell patent for the telephone in front of the US Supreme Court. That was more than a 100 years ago. Patent applications are still filed to improve the telephone devices, switchgear, and networks.
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