EDITOR Brendan M. Laurs (
[email protected]) CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Emmanuel Fritsch, IMN, University of Nantes, France (
[email protected]) Henry A. Hänni, SSEF, Basel, Switzerland (
[email protected]) Franck Notari, GemTechLab, Geneva, Switzerland (
[email protected]) Kenneth V. G. Scarratt, GIA Research, Bangkok, Thailand (
[email protected]) DIAMONDS U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awards patents, and consequently it may affect the validity of a Bar code technology applied to diamonds. Inscribing dia- number of patents on diamond cut designs. monds using lasers and other technologies has become a A general review of U.S. patent law as it applies to routine method for identifying a stone and personalizing it diamond cuts can be found in the Winter 2002 G&G (T. for individual situations. At the same time, bar coding has W. Overton, “Legal protection for proprietary diamond evolved from the traditional one-dimensional array of lines cuts,” pp. 310–325). One of the factors that the USPTO to a two-dimensional matrix code that can hold far more considers in awarding a patent is whether the claimed information. invention is a development that would be “obvious” to Diamond laser inscription technology has now pro- a person having ordinary skill in the relevant field. An gressed to the point where a miniature matrix code can be obvious invention is not eligible for a patent. Until the inscribed on the girdle of a diamond (see, e.g., figure 1). KSR International case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Instead of just a grading report number, the matrix code the Federal Circuit (which has jurisdiction over patent can store all of the information in the report itself, such as disputes) applied a fairly narrow definition of obvious- clarity, cut, and color grades, as well as country of origin (if ness: whether a specific motivation or suggestion to known), the name of the manufacturer, and other combine prior inventions or knowledge (referred to as specifics.