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Seeking Prior Art Before Filing Patent?
An anonymous reader asks: "I had a sort of out-there idea for computer hardware, and wanted to investigate design and manufacture. I figure the first step would be to patent the idea so that I am protected from it being stolen, while I confer with contractors about fabrication and circuit design. Does anyone know of ways to check for prior art, other than hitting up Google for something similar? I believe this idea is unique, but you never know what could have been out there, and I didn't know if there were any good resources on the web. Since the readership seems to be an inventive bunch, I think discussion on this topic may help more people than myself."
Nobody else does- why seperate yourself from the crowd!?
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
I'd search gizmodo, engadget, and Boing Boing, as they often post "out there" examples of hardware (I'd imagine you already searched the archive of Slashdot). Also the US Patent office has a search on it and you can search by keywords, like "touch screen," "handlebars," "vibration," and "chocolate" (no, I won't tell you what I'm working on either...).
Alex.
The truth is, even if your patent is approved, the teeth of patent is backed by your ability to take it into court.
While it is nice to hold it as a property with the possibility of transfering it in the future (to someone who CAN defend it in court), it is not a hands-down defense of your idea.
Your idea had better be able to make it to market with quality backing by you. If that isn't there, who cares about a patent?
For the price, if you're sold on the idea, skip the BS and just patent it already.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
You can search a list of all registered patent attorneys in the US here.
s ter/
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/dcom/olia/oed/ro
This is pretty much the only valid answer to this question, so we might as well shut the story down now.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Does any other company really search for prior art anymore? Granted, it might help... but you don't run across something obvious... go for it anyways.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
What's the worst that could happen?
Why not fork?
Get this book: http://www.nolo.com/product.cfm/ObjectID/139AEDE9- 69A0-4810-A7A87D2AD5422664/catid/00E99E7C-76B3-406 F-AE703233C2157E4E/310/101/
It has everything you want to know and alot more.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Get an IP lawyer. Seriously. They don't get paid just to defend against SCO. They actually do, you know, IP law.
Hire a patent lawyer?
Isn't that what they're for?
In general patent attorneys do not search for prior art. That's not their job. It's the patent office's job to know what's prior art. After all, they have years worth of patent applications sitting right in front of them -- many of them covering inventions that are still in the lab and aren't public knowledge.
A patent attorney writes a patent that covers your invention and potentially foreseeable implementations of your invention. A good patent attorney produces a document that is defensible in court. In otherwords, a document that threatens your competition's implementation of your idea and incites them to license your patent.
If you are serious about filing a patent, I would highly suggest consulting with a patent lawyer. Write up the patent as best as you think it should be, then go have a chat with an IP lawyer. They will be able to help you with wording it such that you grab up as large of a swath of IP as you can. Yes, a patent lawyer cost a few bucks, but it isn't like you need to higher them full time. You just need to consult with someone, get some information, then throw the finished product back to them so they can give it a once over.
If you are not terribly serious about this and just want to drop the $150 and get a patent, then at the very least go pick up a book on patentning. A lawyer is probably the easiest rout, but picking up a book is probably the cheapest. If you are serious and might want to try and make money off of this though, you really should talk with an IP lawyer. If nothing else, they can give you an idea of the overall cost before wasting time and money.
You see the ads on late-night TV, and of course they're probably full of crap. But these people might help.
Since the readership seems to be an inventive bunch, I think discussion on this topic may help more people than myself
I have a great idea that can help you, but I've patented it. You can use it for $1,000,000. Please contact my lawyer.
There's a reason the legal departments of corporations order their engineers not to so much as Google for prior art. Hold yourself to the same standard; get yourself a patent attorney and let them take on the liability on your behalf.
(IANAL, but I deal with a lot of them. ;-)
Not true. Attorneys take courses in patent search, and the major publishers have tools to aid them in this. While it won't be a sure-fire thing, they would at least tell you what patents (if any) you could possibly be infringing, and if neccissary, defend your patent in court.
IF Notfound A then GOTO PatentAttorneySearch ELSE GOTO SavedMoneyOnPatentAttorneyAndAbort
Seriously. Don't bother. The patent system is a mess. You've probably already infringed on 5 patents just by creating whatever it is you say you've invented. Just patent it, and don't bother with the prior art. Paul Graham wrote about that in an article that previously featured on /..
The Case Against Patents Classic Paper, by Don Lancaster (warnings: PDF, ads at the end).
Anybody want a peanut?
Patents are something that you would be an idiot to cheap out on. Patent searches are important not just to find out if what you are trying to patent has already been patented because 99% of the time, no kidding, it has. You can't find anyone who makes the damn thing, or anyone who's ever written about it, but if it's technology-related, then you're going to find that five years ago someone with deep pockets fired the patent shotgun at everything related to your idea. The real important to patent searches is that they can help you find specific claims that can coexist with all of the other patents out there. By avoiding the landmines you find in other patents, you can figure out something that is a real "gotcha" moment that qualifies as novel and non-obvious to the patent office.
Each patent is really a bunch of little patents called claims. Patenting something like one-click shopping may have dozens of claims related to the interface, the backend processing, the operation, etc. The more claims you have, the more likely that you patent will infringe and the claims will be reject. The fewer claims you make, the more worthless your patent as someone can easily engineer around it. Given the cost of a patent from a reputable source ($8000-$15000 as high as $50000 depending on number of claims) why bother if you only want to patent something trivial?
If you are cheap, but want some level of protection, get a patent pending. You typically draw up some diagrams and descriptions, then pay between $500-$1500 to have a patent mill or patent lawyer file a provisional patent. This gives you the ability to boldly put "Patent Pending" on your documentation and it gives you a reservation in the patent line. Then you go out, market your idea and hope that a) anyone who thinks of stealing will be discouraged by the risk that your patent is granted and you come back and screw them or b) the money you make marketting your idea can pay for the costs to get the real patent filed.
If you are willing to invest the money, then spend a good amount to get a thorough patent search by someone who's actually there at the USPTO and can go through everything they have, not just what as been digitized. With some legal analysis and comparision of the existing claims to your idea, you can figure out what is missing and concentrate your patent on that.
-JoeShmoe
.
You can do some google searches, or pay one of those patent mills $99 to run basically the same type of keyword search but that's really not going to give you much of a guide. The patent doesn't generally matter, it's the claims. If you are trying to get a utility patent on a widget, it's worth thinking...how can someone
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
- Most startups violate some patent. Getting sued at some point means you're successful. (Why would a patent holder bother suing you if you have no money?)
- Having patents is important. It's helping Tivo!
Another point that I've heard in the past is that you can patent a non-obvious improvement of someone else's patent. If your device violates a patent, but also has patentable improvements, you are in a good position to negotiate. (For example, you can create a patent pool or agree not to sue each other.)No, I will not work for your startup
Joe here had the first real comment worth reading (so far). You need to do a search, and the USPTO has a free search on their website that you can search both applications and granted patents. there are also databases like delphion, and perhaps you can find a university library with access to a service like that.
when reading prior art patents, you need to compare what you do to the claims of the patent, ignore the abstract and all of the text before it, just read the claims, and check if that describes your invention (or parts of it).
Good luck!
> I figure the first step would be to patent the idea so that I am protected from it being stolen...
For USA patent protection, you can file up to 12 months after the invention is first offered for sale or disclosed to the public. So it is possible to wait to see if the idea has some commercial merit before filing for a patent. You would lose the opportunity for international patents, but its my guess you can't afford those anyway. Another alternative is to file a provisional patent. That requires no prior art search, just a description of the invention. After filing the provisional patent, you have 12 months to file the acutal patent, plus additional extentions allowed by law. By using both a delayed application and a provisional application, you can end up filing the actual patent application 24 months after first public disclosure. Alternatively, if the provisional patent is filed prior to first public disclosure, it also protects your ability to seek international patents.
FYI, in the short term, use an NDA when working with anyone else to avoid public disclosure, which starts the clock on the various deadlines mentioned above.
Having just patented my voting-related invention (www.voteword.org) I can tell you that I spent a lot of time on the USPTO web site making sure I was the first person in that neck of the technology woods. I also purchased a relatively inexpensive book called "Patent it Yourself", which I had hoped would guide me through the process (and probably would've, if I had had more time) After running into those time constraints, I decided to ask around for patent attorneys. I'm very glad I did, because I found a good one and I'm now patented (Patent # 6991161 - woop!) and moving forward with the oh-so-much-less-fun part of it: marketing. In sum: time, time, time, time. And some money.
It may take a very long time to sift through all the related patents, but it's something you should do. For someone new to the IP game, it will take a long time to do your first one.
btw, trying to read all the patent gibberish written is laywer-speak will be difficult and irritating, if you're serious about your patent, you could just hire a patent laywer to do it for you, but that'll cost big money.
In response to your question regarding prior art, I would recommend a search before filing for a patent. The process of pursuing a patent is a time and money consuming endeavor. The patent office expects you to have completed a prior art search before filing for a patent. If your idea is struck down by the patent office, you could end up wasting hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on filing fees. Conversely, a prior art search can be fairly inexpensive. Depending on the field being searched and how many similar items are uncovered by the search, it could cost as little as $100. A good patent searcher can look at your invention disclosure and give you an estimate of how much the search will cost. A reputable patent searcher is bound to confidentiality and will sign a confidentiality agreement if you choose to execute one. I have been doing prior art searches for 16 years and have helped small inventors and large companies save hundreds of thousands of dollars in filing fees. I'm not a patent attorney and this posting does not constitute legal advice or an actual estimate for services. Hope this helps.
Then search google or your favorite search engine and lastly hit the library and search for publications that may contain this type of thing that you want to patent.
lastly, if you find nothing, then get your money togeather and file a patent.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
I'm not a patent attorney but I've filed about 40 patents on technology I've developed, written mostly by myself with a patent attorney just doing a final pass over the claims. There is a real art to writing good patent claims and if you're new to it you should get some professional help with at least that part (in addition to reading up on writing patents). In some ways a patent is like a computer program and the claims are the actual code -- the rest is just comments that help make the claims understandable. A court battle revolves completely around the claims. The battle is over whether the defendant's technology "reads" against the plaintiff's claims, and whether the relevant claims are valid, in light of ealier technology ("prior art").
A good prior art search makes your patent much more valuable and you are the best person to do that search, since you understand the subject area. There seems to be a common misconception that other patents are the main place you need to look. In my experience, the earliest prior art is almost never in other patents. For example, the best prior art for hash-based object naming I've seen is in a program called FWKCS that was used with a few BBS systems in the late 1980's. The patents in this area were all filed starting in the mid-1990's. Online mailing lists are a good source of pointers to programs and also descriptions of ideas that themselves constitute prior art, since they are public. Do some searching in Google Groups (formerly usenet groups) and in the archives of specialized mailing lists that are relevant to your topic (e.g., www-talk for early Internet-related ideas).
Academic papers are often an excellent source of prior art. Many papers are available online for free though citseer (http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/). You may also want to join the IEEE and ACM to gain access to their rather complete databases of all their published journal articles. Finally, you should also search in some patent databases. The USPTO has full text search online at their site (https://sportal.uspto.gov/secure/portal/efs-unreg istered). Subscription to a search database such as Delphion
(http://www.delphion.com/) is relatively cheap if you only subscribe for a month or two. Note that the important date for a patent is its priority date, which is when it was filed or when an earlier application it is based on was filed. In the US, applicants are allowed to present proof in a court case that they actually had the idea up to a year before their priority date, so you may need to find art a year older than a filing date to be able to argue that a claim is invalid.
Finally, remember that you're searching for art relevant to claims (usually the broadest claims in a patent). Patents are not invalidated, specific sets of claims are. The more you understand what the most essential differences are between what you've done and what others have done before you, the stronger a set of claims you and an experienced patent writer will be able to put together. Good luck!
Both you and your GP poster are wrong. The attorney you hire to write your patent does not provide a layer of abstraction that makes it likely that your attorney is going to go searching for prior art. You are right about triple damages, if the inventor knew about infringing prior art. However, the penalties for the attorney if they file a patent that infringes on known prior art are even more severe. A patent attorney is obligated by law to disclose any prior art. If they do not, they can be disbarred (the patent bar)!
Knowing about all prior art is the patent office's job! This is why you have to pay such high fees to the patent office. If you are an inventor it is assumed that you will be familiar with the state of the art and thus you can make a judgment about the likelihood of its novelty. But nothing more is necessary. The patent office is the ultimate authority on whether your patent is truly novel. If your patent is invalidated by an obscure reference in BYTE, it probably wasn't very interesting to begin with.
The only way you can have your cake and eat it too is to hire two separate attorneys: one to do the search and one to do the patent.
BTW, doing a patent search will often cost as much as writing the patent in the first place.
And he can't really sue in state court, because trade secret misappropriation is really hard to prove as a practical matter. State law claims are messy for everyone. In fact manufacturers historically wouldn't even talk to inventors if they didn't have a patent, in order to prevent groundless state law litigation.
If you're at the point of talking to manufacturers, then $10k (which is what a patent costs from a reputable patent firm) is not going to be a large amount of money.
Also, some people claim that patents are infeasible to enforce, which isn't really true. There are patent contingency firms (mediocre but-good-enough-for-this-purpose lawyers) as well as patent contingency funds like Rembrandt who pay for top-quality lawyers. If the claim is good, it will be brought on contingency, and if the claim is good, the guy who's "ripping you off" will back down rather than waste a lot of money fighting a losing battle. The key here is that your patent is directed towards the product, so you can use narrow claims that describe the product exactly. This isn't a case of someone who has a pie-in-the-sky idea, somehow gets a broad claim through the patent office, and then sues Microsoft ten years later for a billion dollars.
With great power comes great fan noise.
Good point. I had forgotten about the PPA (Provisional Patent Application). Using the forms on the USPTO site, I filed one myself as I continued to look for a good patent attorney. Total cost: $210. There's very little down-side to filing a PPA, except for the fact that the world gets to see your idea. HOWEVER, the filing of the PPA draws your legal line in the sand and establishes the date of your invention against all other claims - if, of course, your patent is granted. So VoteWord was officially out there in June of 2004 via a PPA, but the patent wasn't granted until this year.
IEEE's Spectrum Magazine has an excellent article on Do-It-Yourself Patents this month. To answer your question, from the article:
i ndexs.htm.
The first step in conducting a [patent] search is to classify what it is you have invented. Look in the government classification manual to find the class and subclass that apply to your invention. The manual is available online at http://www.uspto.gov/go/classification/uspcindex/
[skip example]
The next step is to search the patent database at http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-adv.htm.
It goes on from there. An excellent read.
Get the Nolo Press book.
Did I mention that you should get the Nolo Press book?
Also, and finally, you really should get the Nolo Press book.
P.S. the first place you need to search is the USPTO web site. the second is a good library, that includes the professional and academic journals relevant to your domain of endeavor. the third is the internet at large. but you can't really stop there, for many cases, well described in....
the Nolo Press book.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
One of the key steps that a patent attorney partakes in is what is called Due Diligence.
From wiki: Due diligence (also known as due care) is the effort made by an ordinarily prudent or reasonable party to avoid harm to another party or himself. Failure to make this effort is considered negligence. Quite often a contract will specify that a party is required to provide due diligence.
Due Diligence in the patent world means doing checks for prior art.
I've never understood that part of the law.
Suppose I've got a patent on a revolutionary new design for toilet seats, another company has copied it closely enough to establish at trial that they've infringed on my patent, and I suspect their infringement was willful. How would I ever go about proving it was willful?
For all I know, they could have sent an engineer on a trip to Canada to find a coffee shop with "free" internet access for paying customers so he can hunt online for interesting patents his company can "harvest".
The guy hunts around until he finds a busy coffee shop without any security cameras, walks in and pays cash for his grande americano with two extra shots of demi-caf espresso, a splash of almond-flavored syrup, three packets of artificial sweetener and room for cream. Then he sits down at the Pentium III with the 12" monitor running Windows 95 over in the corner and starts searching.
As luck would have it (his, not mine) he finds my patent. He's so excited he spills his coffee on the keyboard but still manages to print out a hardcopy on the daisy-wheel printer with the nearly worn-out ribbon, and pays the 50-cent/per page fee at the counter with a roll of quarters. Feeling quite satisfied with himself, he buys two tacky-looking "made for American tourists) jugs of Maple syrup in the duty free store at the airport (one for his Mom 'cause he still lives at home and the other for him 'cause the only thing he knows how to cook is French toast and his Mom is always out playing Bingo at the church on Saturday nights), a copy of Wired magazine to read on the flight, and flies home.
He may be a bit of loser in the eyes of girls he wished he could date, but he's damn smart and works for Steve Balmers's 2nd cousin (no, not that one, the one on his father's side, you know, from Boise Idaho). Between the two of them they make sure no one else knows about their "discovery". They don't mention it in email, on the phone, in elevators, restaurants and so on. They agree to store the single hard copy they have of my patent in the engineer's personal safety deposit box where he keeps his porn so his mother won't find it.
Meanwhile, back at the office, everyone thinks the engineer has come up with this great new revolutionary design for toilet seats on his own. And you can't blame them, 'cause after all, I never did manage to produce one so it's not like they would have ever seen it advertised in one of those in-flight magazines or on that satellite cable, 24-hour, "All News, All the Time, Live from Kenya" station that got that great review from Diane Reems on NPR that everyone is still talking about.
He does, however, worry that I might recognize the design when his company brings their product to market, so he introduces some minor, but legally insignificant, variations and changes (for instance, his come in five fruity flavors whereas the hand-drawn diagram included in my patent just shows an example in an ugly shade of beige) in the hopes of throwing me -- a legally naive, easily confused and even more easily intimidated, unemployed, middle-school drop out and self-styled "inventor" -- off his tracks.
Once their product is in production, he goes to his safety deposit box, retrieves his single hard-copy, drives a couple of hours into a rural, largely uninhabited neck of his woods, pulls over and takes a leak at the side of the road, halls a portable, "diamond-cut" shredder that was on-sale at Office Mix out of his trunk, plugs the thing into the cigarette lighter in his car, shreds the hard-copy, burns the remaining scraps, destroys the shredder (he always did want to live out that scene for the movie Office Space), dumps what's left into a nearby lake, and drives home.
A couple of months pass by and, in a completely unrelated sequence of events, the engineer and his boss begin a torrid office romance, which, as these things are known to do, eventually becomes a widespread secret en-route to becoming public knowledge on account of them getting caught "doi
Great... all we needed was a film noir subgenre on IP law.
Let's start off by saying that we are discussing the most advantageous legal behavior for honorable and truthful people to have, not some scam.
Of course both the inventor and his attorney are required to disclose all known prior art when filing a patent. Not only is it a legal requirement, but it's stupid not to do so. The USPTO has its faults, but its patent search system is not one of them. You waste your money (and the attorney wastes his time, for a first-action rejection without a response limits the hours he can bill) filing if you know of a preexisting relevant patent you do not disclose for, in my experience, the USPTO will find it if it exists. And yes, attorneys can and do get disbarred for such things.
I also agree that it is neither the inventor's nor the attorney's responsibility to perform prior art searches, that the inventor, as one of (presumably at least) ordinary skill in the art, is assumed to be able to make a determination of novelty, and that the patent office is the ultimate authority on what is, and is not, prior art. I note, however, that what we are discussing are informal searches, not those leading to a binding statement from the attorney; we are discussing those typically taken to avoid the somewhat awkward situation that arises in the office of the attorney when he presents the client with a first-action rejection with dead-on prior art.*
Finally, I agree that having two attorneys is a superior solution.
However, if you'll read my comment and the GP's comment carefully, you'll note that we are discussing a somewhat different point. In many fields (e.g., recombinant DNA), ordinary skill in the art cannot be obtained without knowledge of existing patents. We are discussing the situation in which you, as the inventor, are presented with prior art relevant to (future and as yet unanticipated) application B when filing for application A. The danger is that one leaves a paper (or electronic) trail showing that one was exposed to relevant art to application B even years earlier, in a different context. While the attorney is not assumed to be a subject matter expert, the inventor is (as you say), and it's a lot harder for the inventor to say that he was unaware of some relevant art in his field of expertise when he is presented with evidence that he has seen it.
I don't know how you feel about your memory, but mine is like a black hole, and while it's not at all impossible for me to see something yet later have no recollection of it, that's not a position I'd be comfortable taking in court. It's much easier to pay an attorney to be subject to that privilege--especially since he's not presumed to be a subject matter expert.
________
*Attorney: Well, your application was rejected because of Jones' patent. While he claims something completely different, he mentions in the specification something very close to your invention. The examiner says it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use Jones' teachings to produce your invention.
Client: I never can understand this legal mumbo-jumbo. What?
Attorney: Your invention is not novel. It's known in the art.
Client: Eh? I know the art. Jones never published anything in a journal. He's never manufactured his invention, and anyway it's completely different from mine. I've never seen this before.
Attorney: Apparently your knowledge of the art is not as good as you thought it was.
Client: This isn't the art. This is patents. I hired you because you have 20 years' experience in the field. Did you know of this patent before, and just took my money to write and file the application?
Attorney: Hey, look, you're the subject matter expert....
[Etc.]
IAAPA (PA=Patgent Agent)and I can tell you that you should consult with a patent agent or lawyer before proceeding. While you can, in principle, represent yourself, there are enough arcane details of the process that make it very hard to be successful. The professionals can help you with searching. In principle you need to search both the patent database and the technical realm as well. Your patent can be invalidated by an article that describes your invention that was published before you filed, just as much as a prior patent. Legal fees aside, there are fees to be paid to the USPTO. For a not too complex patent these can run in the 2-3K range. Lawyers typically get about another several $K to do the research, write the application and negotiate the details with the USPTO. Also plan on waiting about 3 years (or more) before you actually have a patent. However, if someone infringes your idea, you have protection since you have an application on file.
Actually, you don't need to file a patent to have your invention protected : if you write a book describing how you came up with it / how you intend to implement it, you can get copyright laws to protect your invention. This works on the basis that an inventor is the creator of an original work.
LOL - Having worked in a law office (non-IP), your story is just about how clients usually tell their tales of woe when they first come in - except yours didn't have quite enough irrelevancies and had a bit too much useful information.
IANAL but I believe their infringement becomes willful as soon as you or your lawyer give them notice of the subject matter of your patent and the how their product infringes.
Bottom line, though - if they have lawyers and you don't, you lose. Even if you have lawyers AND you win the case AND actually collect on the judgement a few years down the line, if the court doesn't grant judgement for your legal expenses (and they generally don't) then you are still going to end up owing your lawyers money when the whole thing is done unless the judgement collected is in the millions. You won't get thet that kind of judgement unless the company you sued has sold more than $20M worth of your toilet seats. BUT if they managed to sell that kind of volume before you sent your letter informaing them of infringement, or if you can't find or can't pay a lawyer to file suit on your behalf, then you are in danger of losing your patent for failure to defend it.
Furthermore, obtaining a patent in the first place was just a license to get into this kind of mess.
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
That way if they botch it, they might be liable for the mistake, not you.
Sure you lose your patent, but at least you might be covered for any damages that are incurred..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Where patent law is concerned, the context of a claim, applicable prior art, obviousness, and so on is much more important than most people understand. I doubt that you'd be able to figure out by yourself the relevance of what appears to be - but for the purpose of the patent really isn't - prior art. Nor would I - IANAPL. So if you care about such things, get professional advice.
Delphion http://www.delphion.com/ is the best patent search tool there is, IMO. It's $200 USD per month. At the price of filing a patent, it's a bargain. FreePatentsOnline http://www.freepatentsonline.com/ is not nearly as slick, but it's free. I used to use Delphion, I love it--especially the 'snapshot' feature which lets you find out who's doing what very easily. I use freepatentsonline now since I don't have an employer paying for Delphion, it works.
Be warned, prior art search is itself an art. If your not experienced at least in the technical literature, better get an IP attorney.
BTW, the guy at the top who posted "Why bother? Nobody else does." was FUNNY, not INFORMATIVE. Do your prior art search and at least have part of a clue that you might have freedom to operate. Otherwise you are wasting a lot of money, and not just yours.
Copyrighting an idea will in no way grant you the monopoly on its use that a patent will. Copyrighting "My Cool Text Editor" will prevent infringing uses such as outright lifting of a user interface or (obviously) appropriation of source code; but if My Cool Text Editor has some nifty feature like hovering over a word to get a Google tooltip search, don't plan on a copyright helping you preserve anything more than the ad copy for it.
Actually, if you're the first to implement such things, you can claim copyright to its implementation in your written works, and you can exert monopoly rights on that idea. Of course, in this case, it wouldn't stop, anyone from making their software improve on the idea, but that's the same as a patent, anyways.
What is a community subgroup?
Does slashdot have subgroups?