"Peter W.. Rowe," wrote in
:

On Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:31:15 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Jman
wrote:

I was kind of wondering about that myself.... How could one patent
something that exists in raw materials for everyone to use ?
I suppose it would be like trying to patent a pie crust.

No. Come up with a good pie crust recipe different from others and a
significant improvement on prior ones, and you probably could patent
it. What you couldn't patent would be the individual ingredients,
flour, water, sugar, eggs, etc. In an alloy, you're not claiming
patent protection for the ingredients, but rather the specific mix and
proportions thereof, which then give the alloy properties not found in
the individual componants and not duplicated in "prior art". Think
about it. There are LOTS of products out there that are patented, but
are made of known raw materials that are not themselves patented.


Propriety recipes- for pie or silver- are usually protected by secrecy.
I'm no expert, but I have done some investigation of patents with a
patent attorney in regard to products I have invented.

--
Saint Séimí mac Liam
Carriagemaker to the court of Queen Maeve
Prophet of The Great Tagger
Canonized December '99