Posts Tagged ‘Patents’

Al’s Morning Meeting:

The U.S. Patent Office is sitting on a mountain of applications that would take at least six years to clear, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel found in a two-part investigation.

The newspaper points out that a patent could be the key that protects an upstart company or idea. It could ignite the economy, but the backlog of applications means an inventor can wait at least three and a half years to get action.

The Journal Sentinel contends the Patent Office’s practice of publishing detailed applications on its Web site 18 months after the inventor files them — regardless of whether the office has begun to examined them — invites competitors anywhere in the world to steal ideas.

“For more than a dozen years starting in 1992, Congress siphoned off a total of $752 million in fees from the Patent Office to pay for unrelated federal projects, decimating the agency’s ability to hire and train new examiners.

“Staff turnover has become epidemic. Experts say it takes at least three years for a patent examiner to gain competence, and yet one examiner has been quitting on average for every two the agency hires.

“In many cases, applications languish so long that the technology they seek to protect becomes obsolete, or a product loses the interest of investors who could give it a chance at commercial success. ‘Patents are becoming commercially irrelevant to product life cycles,’ said John White, a patent attorney and former examiner.”

Photo by USPTO.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Inventors Digest:

A design patent protects the ornamental appearance of a physical product.

A utility patent protects how the product works, or possibly the steps used to manufacture it.

For example, automotive rims often are protected with design patents.

You cannot get a utility patent on what is basically a wheel and therefore already in the public domain.

Design patents often receive a lot of flak, and not just because they are weak and easy to design around.

Invention-promotion companies frequently sell design-patent applications to unsuspecting inventors who do not understand that patents come in two basic flavors.

Because design patents are relatively easy and quick to prepare, inexpensive to file, and allow the inventor to legally say “Patent Pending,” invention-promotion companies tend to be the biggest advocates of design patents.

Everyone is happy, until the inventor ultimately learns that a design patent is weaker than a utility patent.

Yet under the right circumstances, inventors should consider filing a design patent.

Nearly 90 percent of design-patent applications are allowed and about 85 percent of these don’t receive any type of U.S. Patent & Trademark Office rejection.

Utility patent applications are only issuing at the rate of about 40 percent, even after multiple office actions, and typically two to three years to obtain.

But if you file a design patent, there’s a good chance that 12 to 18 months later it will actually issue and you will be able to stop competitors who are blatantly copying your invention.

Continue Reading: “Defending Design Patents”

Photo by USPTO.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.

Inventors Digest:

Every inventor must realize that once an invention is used publicly or an attempt is made to sell it, a patent for said invention must be filed within one year or the rights will be lost.

This is good news because it gives inventors a year to test market an invention before spending money on a patent.

However, it also opens the door to disputing with regard to who was the first to invent.

Having a successful invention most definitely means that you will have to deal with imitators.

In this case you will have to spend time and money proving you invented first, and without excellent records, proving this may be impossible.

The one year limitation also shows how patents are perishable. There is a point in a patent’s lifetime when it is the most valuable, and a point where it becomes worthless.

Those knowledgeable in business take advantage of the patent’s lifetime.

One must consider whether it makes better business sense to fund a patent or spend money building market share.

After all, branding provides a much stronger competitive advantage than a patent does.

Continue Reading: “To Patent Or Not To Patent”

Photo by USPTO.

From Business Opportunities Weblog.