Fun at the US patent office site
 

Check this out (I'm sure some of you knew it was out there, but I didn't):

http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/search-bool.html

Type "Kamen" in term one and select "Inventor Name" in field one.
I love this site. I was digging around for my Dad's patents and found it.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Instead of Kamen, use "Kamen, Dean". That gets rid of the other 80 some patents belonging to Kamens other than Dean.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Right. I've been messing with search strings too.
You can also go here:
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
and quick search the right hand side for published applications.
He's got 30+ pending too!!

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

EDIT: Whoops link didnt work, well just go there and search for Baker, Andrew...its the first one

Look Familiar? If you don't wanna click the link the title of the patent is:
"Propulsion mechanism having spherical ball"

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Awww ... such a long link, and it doesn't even work. :(

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Y'all are missing the real interesting one...

http://appft1.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-...=IN/kamen-dean

Method and system for creating coopertition

Filed 7/22/04...sound familar, anyone?

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

^ I thought they were joking when they said they patented a+2b scoring. Especially since WPI's miniFIRST competition has prior art by 1.5 months.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Yes, that patent just came through a few weeks ago. Also, I have another one, listed on that site as the 11th one down as I search for Baker, Andrew: "Flip-chip mounting assembly and method with vertical wafer feeder". Currently, I have 2 more in the works, but they are not granted yet (both are Delphi-business related).

Also... check out these inventors who post on ChiefDelphi:

Mark Koors: 12 patents listed here (all from the same Mark)
Joseph Johnson (aka Dr. Joe): items 2,3,5,8... (he has a bunch, I stopped looking after 8)

I am sure that there are others.

Andy B.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

I'll brag, since I just had 2 granted within the past month. IN/Nordland.

D497,309 and D497,548. I have 3 more applications in as well. All belong to my former employer.

:D

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

For those of you who have submitted patents, I have a few questions:
How much time, effort, money, and resources does it take to submit a patent? I know there are a lot of variables and you don't even need to have anything tangible to patent, but based on what you did what are the answers to that question? Any other general information about submitting a patent would be appreciated (though I have read the a lot of stuff on the Patent Office website). Thanks.

I did search the forums and the internet in general and have found some general information, but I would like to know how far you went with your design process , how much of the process you did yourself, how much you had a patent attorney do and other things of that nature.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Fortunately, I work for a big company and they pay for the patent attorney, so I have no idea how much time he spends. Unfortunately, they keep the rights to the patent. But I get paid $500 for an idea that generally has a very narrow application and probably wouldn't go commercial anyway. If I really thought I could make money on the idea, then I'd quit and then write the patent and market it myself.

In terms of my effort. It takes several hours to write one up, the biggest part is searching prior art. This is important as at least once I developed an idea that I thought was pretty cool, only to find that it had been patented 25 years before. (at least it had expired by then) This has gotten a lot easier with the help of search engines. It usually takes at least a couple of hours in meetings with the patent attorney to get the words right and cover the claims properly. After that it is submit and wait.

One of the primary reasons we do patents is to document and protect our ideas so that we can continue to use them ourselves. If you submit the paperwork you are protected whether the patent is issued or not. That way nobody can force us to pay royalties to use our own idea.

I have one patent right now with two or three in process and four more we're going to submit to the patent attorney by the end of the year.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Yes.. and it's basically a play by play of the 2003 game, and it's structure, with the same CAD drawings we get from FIRST themselves submitted as the supplemental images, as well as the picture of the tournament structure :)

You gotta DL the tiff viewer plug-in to see the images though. ;)

I think this is a new accomplishment. Now you can patent games.
Nice...

Btw, Milton-Bradley has been doing this for years, so I have no clue why this comes as a shock to me, but, oh well.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

The business I started just filled for a provisional patent on its primary business method a couple of months ago.

A provisional patent is something that one can write without a patent attorney and still have protection until the final patent is written. A provisional patent has an $80 filling fee is something that simply lets you get your claim date set in stone earlier, and you then have 1 year to file your official patent which actually protects your design, plant, or method.

As for costs, it widely varies depending on your attorney and the type of patent. For something tangible and mechanical, you're looking between $3,000 and $7,000, depending on the complexity, potential conflicting claims in that field, and things like that. Technology patents, like on software or software methods, are much more difficult (and attorneys who specialize in them are much more rare) so your costs will range from $7,000 to $20,000.

Writing the patent and prior art research time varies significantly, all depending on your priority with the attorney and the complexity of your design or method. A range between a week and a month to write the patent is very ball parkish.

Actually getting your patent back and official... that's where the bigger variety comes in. Between 12 and 30 months, depending on your patent and how well it's written, and if it goes through the first time.

One book that we used that I highly recommend is Patent it Yourself, by David Pressman. This book teaches you how to write your own patents and goes through the whole process very well. However, I think that if you truly have a patentable idea, your safest bet, far and away, is to just have a patent attorney write the patent.

That's my two cents!

Matt

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Also, my professor told me that you should keep a lab notebook in a bound notebook. Then you should have someon unrelated to you sign and date the pages as you finish them. This is useful in case you need to file an injuction to stop someone from patenting your idea.

Re: Fun at the US patent office site
 

Whoa...
I knew my father had some, but this is the first time I've gotten to actually see the details.

I found 6 of them. Cool beans.

Maybe Lavery was being REALLY clever, and the game hint lies somewhere in these patents??? :ahh:

John