merely incidental. For example, market acceptance testing is not considered to be an experimental use. Any public experimentation should be no more extensive than reasonably necessary for the perfection of the invention. It is up to the Examiner to determine whether the scope and length of the experimental activity is reasonable in terms of the intended purpose of the tests and the nature of the subject matter involved. PATENT PENDING The words “patent pending” can be placed on an invention once the inventor has filed a patent application. After a patent issues, the patent number should be placed on the invention. Alternatively, the patent applicant can mark its product with a website address and then place the appropriate patent numbers at the website address thereby avoiding expenses associated with updated product labeling each time a new patent issues, and only requiring update of the website. Failure to mark the product with the patent number can lead to reduced damages when enforcing the patent. Accordingly, marking is strongly encouraged. There are also laws against improper marking. Therefore, care should be taken to only mark products covered by the patent and to remove the marking when the patent expires. In some ways, the words “patent pending” can be a more powerful deterrent to a competitor than the actual patent which later issues. When a competitor sees the words “patent pending” on a product, it has no idea what feature or features of the invention are being claimed in the pending patent application. Suppose for example,
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