This week a Swedish inventor was forced to realize that it is not smart to bring you invention when going to Denmark on vacation. Particularly not when the invention involves a large battery and a lot of wires attached to a car and when planning to park in a public garage.
The trip resulted in a major bomb scare, where the surrounding buildings were evacuated and got the undivided attention of the entire press in the middle of the “silly season”.
According to Danish media the unfortunate inventor has explained that the car is a proto-type on the battery-powered car of tomorrow, which recharges when driving, and that he has been working on the invention for about a year. If intending to apply for a patent for his invention, as is very common with this type of ideas, the poor man may, however, have created other problems for himself than just having his vacation spoiled. Due to the extreme amount of publicity he may not be able to live up to the requirement that invention cannot have been made available to the public by means of a written or oral description, by use, or in any other way prior to the filing of a patent application.
In conclusion, if you must test your invention during vacation, spend the vacation in a more sparsely populated place than Copenhagen, or at least were it is not going to be scrutinized by traffic wardens.
Vibeke Warberg Rohde, European Patent Attorney
Kim Garsdal Nielsen, European Patent Attorney