Robert Gore was not the first to discover ePTFE (Gore Tex) material, but the prior inventor kept his invention as a trade secret. Robert Gore has defended his patent against original inventor, won, and then sued anyone who has uses equipment made by the original inventor.
> Early public disclosure is a linchpin of the patent system. As between a prior inventor who benefits from a process by selling its product but suppresses, conceals, or otherwise keeps the process from the public, and a later inventor who promptly files a patent application from which the public will gain a disclosure of the process, the law favors the latter. See Horwath v. Lee, 564 F.2d 948, 195 USPQ 701 (CCPA 1977). The district court therefore erred as a matter of law in applying the statute and in its determination that Budd's secret use of the Cropper machine and sale of tape rendered all process claims of the '566 patent invalid under Sec. 102(b).
It looks like there's an important distinction between patenting Gore-Tex the product, and patenting a process for manufacturing Gore-Tex.
