Talk:Patent caveat/Archive 1

Link to USPTO web site
The link in the "External links" section to the USPTO web site does not help the reader in my opinion. The link (to the USPTO home page) is too general and the whole USPTO web site does not appear to contain any information on patent caveats, see (unless the search engine is not exhaustive). I therefore suggest deleting this external link. --Edcolins (talk) 19:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)
 * In the absence of any reaction, I am removing the link again. Please discuss this matter on the talk page before reinserting the link. Thanks. --Edcolins (talk) 11:13, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Attorney requirements
This good faith edit was recently added. I moved it here for further discussion and refinement.--Nowa (talk) 22:24, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * ''Caveat applications did not require the use of a patent attorney to be filed at the patent office, although applicants often employed them to avoid application delays. Similar to the present day standards for regular patent applications, any person of "intelligence or good moral character" could act as a patent agent, and legal training was not a formal requirement to conduct filings. However, only formal lawyers could contest caveat or patent issues before the courts. To be successful, patent agents and attorneys of the era usually had technical expertise, and had studied patent laws and procedures.

'' I'd like to outline a number of issues with this content:
 * I think who can represent an inventor in front of the patent office is already well covered in patent attorney. I think adding a note about this subject would be appropriate to the article if there was something special about the requirements of representation to file a patent caveat.  If someone could come up with a reference to that effect, it would be great.
 * I don't believe it's true that "any person of 'intelligence or good moral character'" could represent an inventor for either at patent or patent caveat at that time. It certainly isn't true at the current time.  Only persons who pass the patent bar and are registered with the office can represent clients.
 * As far as I know, inventors have always been able to represent themselves in front of the office. That's called "pro se".  The Wright Brothers are a notable example, although they did get an attorney when the office recommended that they do. --Nowa (talk) 22:38, 14 January 2012 (UTC)