Fun at the US patent office site

[petek]

Originally Posted by tkwetzel

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?

Though like Chris, my employer takes care of patent filing, I know that they peg their average costs for filing a patent at $50,000. That covers attorney's fees, USPO fees, internal costs (the time we spend working on the patent application, etc.), and I work in New Jersey, where everyone's expenses are grossly inflated.

As far as hints, most importantly: have everything in writing (black ink prefered), signed, witnessed and dated regularly through the invention process. All your notes and ideas should be written down, preferably in a bound notebook. It doesn't have to be pretty or in good english, but needs to be understandable by someone knowledgeable about in the field.

- Pete

5,937,536 “Rapid Drying Oven for Providing Rapid Drying of Multiple Samples”
6,058,625 & 6,158,146 “Rapid Drying Oven and Methods for Providing Rapid Drying of Multiple Samples”
6,468,787 “Method and Apparatus for Controlled Photoelution”

[Gary Dillard]

I've got a couple - 5,159,917 and 5,596,870. These were paid for by my previous employer - I submitted numerous invention disclosures and they made the decision on which ones to submit for patents. It always seemed like the things I thought were most novel and deserving of patent protection (like some things our competitor had already asked for details) they weren't interested in and alot of the stuff they submitted wasn't too novel.

While doing a search under Dillard for inventor, I found a "ball delivery system". Sorry, that's not mine - I don't think any of the one's we've built for competition warrant discussion, much less a patent.

[JamesBrown]

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...FIELD2=&d=ptxt

Those are the ones our Falculty Advisor has.

[Aaron]

cool

[Elgin Clock]

I think everyone's electrical team would be interested in going to THIS PAGE and doing a search for patent number 6,674,259.

[Chris Fultz]

My turn -


United States Patent 5,219,147
Fultz , et al. June 15, 1993
Valve lock

Abstract
A shut off valve has a valve lock that snaps onto a cylindric of the valve body and locks the shut-off valve in its open position by retaining the cross bar of a rotatable T-shaped handle in a parallel position in a housing portion of the valve lock. The valve lock also snaps onto the cylindrical end section to retain the cross bar in a perpendicular position at the end of the housing portion to lock the shut-off valve in its closed position.

Inventors: Fultz; Christopher B. (Indianapolis, IN); Caputo; James H. (Plainfield, IN)
Assignee: General Motors Corporation (Detroit, MI)