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I seem to remember that the SpiRobs paper behind the (extremely neat) tentacle mechanism indicated that they were going for a patent.


The SpiRobs team did file a patent (US20210170594A1) for their pneumatic continuum robots in 2019, which was published in 2021 but appears to still be pending approval.


If it's described in a paper doesn't that make it prior art though?


Not if it is the authors of the paper filing for the patent. Otherwise people would never publish papers.


Patents are intended to be the form of first public disclosure of an idea. Disclosing it before patenting it can prevent the patent application being valid.

US has a 1 year grace period. In most countries, any public disclosure makes an idea unpatentable.

https://outlierpatentattorneys.com/patent-public-disclosure


This always grinds my gears. For some people "discoveries" are so obvious, they don't bother writing a paper let alone patenting it. Then someone goes and patents it...


Examples?


https://ppubs.uspto.gov/pubwebapp/static/pages/ppubsbasic.ht...

Have a look. For instance in the search box enter "categories".


  > Search results
  > Results for query "(Categories).pn."

  > No records found


I am sorry for not being precise. You should enter "Categories" in "For" input. (in the "Or" section)




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