Invention Ideas Blog

2012 Trade Show Season is Starting

Robert Montgomery — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 13:35:49 +0000

Time to say hello to a new year of great new inventions and products.

As has been the case in years past, the industrial trade show season kicks off with the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and with the Sports Licensing and Tailgating Show during the week of January 10-15 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Your Invention Guru was there. There were big companies, little companies, international companies, and even individual inventors all next to one another reaching for the elusive brass ring.

Sports Licensing and Tailgating Show

Neil Montgomery at the Sports Licensing and Tailgating Trade Show

January 11-13 the Mandalay Bay Convention Center in Las Vegas hosted the Sports Licensing and Tailgating trade show exhibiting licensed trademarked products to buyers across the country. Next to the many successful products looking to expand their distribution were hopeful new products from inventors working on a shoestring in search of a licensing deal and a taste of the big leagues. Everywhere you looked you could see products emblazoned with every NFL® team logo; college logos from the north, south, east and west; the NHL®; MLB®; NBA®; and NASCAR®. You name it – it was there… and then some.

I spent time at the Putter Around The House™ and Tailgate Golf ™ booth watching buyer after buyer stop by to talk business. As many of you know, my son Neil is the inventor of these two games while serving as President of Ad-Gen, a business-to-business advertising and product promotional company. I overheard business discussions regarding where best to get products made, who has the lowest price for full-color display boxes, how United Parcel Service’s 4.9% increase in shipping costs will affect sales, whether the U.S. economy is starting to bounce back or perhaps Europe is truly volatile, what online sales sites can do better than brick and mortar stores, and so on. You see, there is much more to a successful product than just a good idea.

Sports and racing in America is a growing multi-billion dollar industry with sports licensing becoming a bigger and bigger part of the pie. Tailgating at all sorts of events, including concerts, has exploded into a growth industry of its own. Inventors in companies, and by themselves in garages, are creating new products to fill the seemingly insatiable desire for all things sports and tailgating. Of course, reality tells us that not every product will be a winner, but this January at the 2012 Sports Licensing & Tailgating Show, hope springs eternal in everyone’s heart.

Consumer Electronics Show

The Invention Guru: Robert Montgomery and his wife Marcy at the CES show in Las Vegas

Most of us remember from school the opening line of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…”

It was as if Dickens were writing about the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show held January 10-13 at the Las Vegas Convention and Sands Convention Centers. Local television commentators estimated that 180,000 CES attendees had descended upon the city. It must be “the best of times.”

But just as everything was happily getting started, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer shook the trade show to its quick with his Keynote Speech. 2012 will be Microsoft’s last CES and he expected more companies will choose not to let the timing of CES rule their new product announcements. Although Ballmer didn’t come right out and say that CES will join most other industry trade shows into a decline, one could read between the lines. With one speech, it suddenly became “the worst of times.”

Dickens’ next phrase was: “it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity.” 2012 CES exhibited products, and announced even more future products, showing without a doubt that we are living in “the age of wisdom.” As for “foolishness,” CES had computer based games of every ilk. And, in January 2012 while walking through the miles and miles of exhibits, there is no doubt that the human race has a “belief” in technological wonderments that are perfectly “incredulous.”

What will come of the CES in years ahead is left to be seen. I’m sure that it will remain important as a gathering call for the most technologically advanced of our species. What will no doubt change is the timing of new product announcements by companies. Severed forever are the chains to the second week of January. And just as importantly, products not meeting the CES deadline will no longer suffer the stamp of failure. Companies will introduce new products when it is best for the company without risking getting lost in the noise of hundreds of other introductions at oneLas Vegas trade show.

Epilogue:

Las Vegas appears to be coming back from some bad economic times. Stalled buildings like The Fontainebleau are finally being finished. New structures are going up. More people are staying in the hotels and eating in the restaurants. These are very good signs that the end of the biggest downturn since the Great Depression may be coming to an end.

Year-End Review for Inventors

Robert Montgomery — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:07:14 +0000

We have come to the end of another year and look forward optimistically to a new year – goodbye 2011. It’s time to wrap up the year. So while considering appropriate subjects, it quickly became clear that there were too many important topics to pick just one.
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2011 – THE YEAR OF PATENT WARS:

Patent Wars began this year. Patent acquisitions mounting into the billions of dollars were purchased to serve as the ammunition in the personal electronics marketplace, especially for the exploding Smart Phone market. The patent bidding war really began when Apple, Microsoft and their partners beat Google with a $4.5 billion bid for Nortel’s patent portfolio. The objective for the patent purchase was a not-so-subtle attempt by the group to hinder Google’s Android SmartPhone platform from earning market share by filing infringement law suits.

Not to be outflanked in the war, Google countered with a $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility and its valuable patent portfolio. Google was also able to acquire some patents from IBM. Who will win the war will be one of the big stories for 2012.
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THE UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE:

The Patent Office has been in turmoil for a few years now. An enormous backlog of patent applications finally reached a point where something had to done. Complicating everything was Congress using the Patent Office bank account as a piggy bank to fund other programs. The money raids made it impossible for the Patent Office to operate effectively.

Everything changed with the signing into law of the bipartisan America Invents Act on September 16. Many significant reforms are underway along with needed financial stability for the Patent Office. Now fees paid by inventors will stay with the Patent Office to improve the system.

As changes are being made, it is very curious to observe the timing of patents as they course through the Patent Office. This past week our office had three utility patents issued all with a December 27, 2011 date. (Patents are issued on Tuesdays.) One issued application was filed on May 19, 2011, the second filed on February 6, 2009 and the third filed on November 6, 2007. Therefore, from filing to issuance, the first application took 7 months, the second took 2 years and 10 months, while the third took 4 years and nearly 2 months.

Don’t feel too bad for our third client. Because the patent application took excessively long, the patent term was extended nearly three years (actually 1085 days) beyond the standard 20 year utility patent term. Sometimes good things happen to those who have to wait.
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CHINA:

2011 saw continued price increases in China for finished products. Gone are the days of pennies instead of dollars. Along with increased prices, wages have improved to the point where China has the beginnings of a true middle class that has spending power. One of our manufacturing partners has started selling American-made products to China. That’s right. China wants products in American boxes, printed in English with no reference to China. There appears to be a growing impression amongst the Chinese that products made in America for the U.S. marketplace is of superior quality and that’s what they want for themselves. Made In America is not dead yet.
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HOW TO INVENT A MONEY-MAKING INVENTION:

When meeting with our manufacturing partners, I always ask: What products are they looking for? How can we better advise our clients? How do they pick the money-making inventions?

So as we begin a new year, here is the secret: Invent something that the masses will want, that is not available today, and that has a high perceived value as compared to the actual cost.

A Long Shot Invention

Robert Montgomery — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:01:35 +0000

The December 2011 edition of the Patent Office’s bi-monthly ”Inventor Eye” is interesting because it validates your Invention Guru’s philosophy that it takes the coordination of legal, engineering and marketing expertise to take an idea through patenting and onto the marketplace.

Nowadays Patent Office personnel are getting out into the inventor community in order to be more responsive to the needs of inventors. The article about “The Polester” by John Calvert of the Patent Office’s Office for Innovation Development describes a typical story for many individual inventors trying to make their inventions into profitable products. The product could be virtually any product, just like the inventor could be any small-entity inventor. The path to success is basically same.

Enjoy the article!

The Polester -

Takes a Long Shot in Digital Photography

For the past two years, the United States Patent and Trademark Office has attended five different Maker Faires in California, Michigan and New York. This summer, I walked into the Henry Ford Museum to cool off from the 95-degree weather and passed a gentleman showing off his invention. He had an adjustable pole with a camera attached on the end capable of taking pictures in places that were not easily accessible. The inventor, Jim Polster, was exhibiting and demonstrating his invention, the Polester. Get it?

I recently caught up with Jim to learn more about his invention. He told me he used to be a cabinet maker but retired from that business and was working for a roofing company. One day, the roofing company gave Jim a 25-foot ladder and a camera and sent him out to take pictures of leaking roofs. One day, after he almost fell off the ladder, Jim started thinking of a safer way to take pictures without the risk of being so high off the ground. He took some toy construction set pieces and built a holder for a camera, then added the pole from a roof snow rake to create the first prototype of the Polester. Next, he took some pictures with this contraption. “I made adjustments to the prototype when I needed to overcome problems,” Jim said.

So, how does the Polester work? A camera is mounted in a holding device with a spring-loaded trigger positioned next to the shutter button. The holding device is then mounted to a pole capable of making angle adjustments for the best view. The operator raises the pole to the proper level and lightly pulls the trigger to automatically focus the lens before snapping the picture. It is really quite simple and very easy to learn how to operate and make adjustments.

Jim said, “I didn’t have the knowledge or understanding of the patent system,” referring to his comfort in filing his own patent. However, he found a backer that helped with the financing so he could hire a patent attorney and get some legal assistance through the USPTO. A little more than two-and-a-half years after he filed his application, Jim received U.S. patent 8,002,480 on Aug. 23, 2011, for a “Mechanically Activated Remote Device for Actuating a Camera.” The issuance of this patent helped him meet two of his goals—demonstrating proof of concept and getting intellectual property protection in the form of a patent.

Jim realized a third goal after selling 220 units of his invention—marketability. While his sales have not been high enough to support him financially, he still sees his invention as a success. Jim acknowledges that his product is not for everyone, but those who have a need should take note of a highly engineered and quality product. None of the 220 units he has sold have been returned.

Out of the original 20 or so markets he identified as his original target audience, he has made inroads in at least eight of those areas. Home inspectors use the Polester to take pictures in places where access could be dangerous such as crawl spaces behind tightly placed machinery or roofs. Jim has also built a customer base with government agencies using his device for a variety of needs including bridge inspections, law-enforcement forensics, and waterworks and sewer treatment plant inspections. Jim is a member of several inventor clubs, refers to inventor blogs, and even worked for one of those large invention companies that say they will do everything for you. He has some advice for aspiring inventors paranoid about their own inventions.

“They think that someone is going to steal the idea, but in reality the likelihood of a company taking an idea from an inventor and developing the invention is very small,” said Jim, and added that many people have similar ideas that result in similar products being developed.

“My invention isn’t the first remote on a pole, but it is different enough to receive a patent,” he said. To learn more about the Polester visit www.longshotcamerasystems.com.

by John Calvert : Office of Innovation Development

Lipitor Patent Expires

Robert Montgomery — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 14:02:45 +0000

Your Invention Guru today finds himself in the United States tropical paradise of Key West, Florida. While looking out at the blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico blending together, my quest is to compose an InventionIdeasBlog. The temperature back at the office is 34° with snow flurries in the air. On my balcony, it’s a breezy 75° with lots of sunshine. This should be proof positive that your Invention Guru will make any sacrifice, face any peril to bring you insight into the world of inventions.

* * * * * * * * *

The Lipitor patent, owned by Pfizer Pharmaceutical, expires on November 30, 2011. Nothing lasts forever and forever for Lipitor patent rights ends today.* Patents for drugs grant a monopoly to the owner for 20 years starting on the official filing date. Patents cannot be renewed. In those 20 years, companies need to get the patent issued, receive FDA approval, market the product, and hopefully earn back the cost of R&D to ultimately make a profit for their shareholders.

The vast majority of new drugs fail to overcome the necessary hurdles. Getting a new drug patented and passed by the FDA takes many years and millions of dollars. Then after all that, some unexpected side effect may force the drug off the market. This was not the case with Lipitor – it was a big winner for Pfizer.

In simple terms, a patent is a bargain struck by the inventor with the government for a monopoly of a set number of years in return for allowing free use of the invention upon expiration of the patent. It is a bargain that has served the United States well, dating back to 1790.

It will be a long time until there is another drug like Lipitor. The king of the cholesterol fighting statin class, Lipitor was beneficial to those who needed the drug while grossing up to $14-billion dollars a year for Pfizer. Even in the final patent rights year, Lipitor was a money maker bringing in $11-billion. And best yet, after the R&D costs were paid off, Pfizer’s per pill cost was only a penny. Thirty cents to produce a month’s worth for each prescription that retailed between $115.00 and $160.00, depending upon dosage. It was not all net profit for Pfizer because marketing, packaging, advertising, shipping, and pharmacy wholesale costs had to be deducted. Nonetheless, Lipitor was in large part responsible for making Pfizer #1.

Because patents have a life span and don’t last forever, the expiration of the Lipitor patent could potentially mean the loss of one-sixth of Pfizer’s revenues with no replacements in the pipeline. When drugs go off patent, generic producers are free to use the patent without paying royalties. Generic drugs generally work equally well for most, but not all, people. When generic alternative drugs hit the market, retail pharmacy prices drop about 25% initially and then gradually plunge down to about 80% off the original on patent price.

It is typical for the name brand to lose a lion’s share of the business to the generics when a drug like Lipitor comes off patent; however, this time Pfizer has developed a revolutionary marketing plan to retain a substantial portion of the business. Pfizer’s plan is to offer patients a Co-Pay Card allowing Lipitor to be purchased for $4.00 retail. Special pricing deals are also being struck with health insurance providers. Pfizer’s new strategy should allow the “off patent” Lipitor to be nearly the same cost as the generic atorvastatin pills. Although the big profits are gone for Pfizer, they are finding a way for Lipitor to continue saving lives while also making money for the company.

* (Most patents filed since the summer of 1995 expire in 20 years after filing. Design patents expire 14 years after issuance.)

Best Inventions of 2011

Robert Montgomery — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 21:39:12 +0000

Your Invention Guru is a most happy man. I received my advanced copy of Time magazine’s November 28^th“Invention Issue.” Everything stopped at the office. My doors went shut. It was just me and my “Invention Issue” with a Hummingbird Drone on the cover that only the Department of Defense could love.

Before heading into a list of the top 50 inventions for the year, there is a very interesting keynote article on page 56 written by Lev Grossman entitled “Reinventing The Inventor.” As Grossman correctly points out, “In the age of Steve Jobs, it’s all about perfecting the final product.”

Being first with a new product is not nearly as important as making the product the best it can be. The hyphenated words are more critical than ever: cost-effective and user-friendly. Jobs wasn’t necessarily first with his revolutionary inventions. In fact, he might not have been that creative of an inventor at all. But what he did do was perfect the Personal Computer, iPod, iPhone, iPad and Digital Movie Animation. He knew what we wanted, and how we wanted it, before we knew that we wanted it at all.

To prove Lev Grossman’s assumption that first to invent isn’t as important as best to invent, let’s take a look at some of Jobs’ most famous inventions.

Radio Shack with hundreds of retail stores across the country beat the Apple II to the market back in 1977.
Kane Kramer, a British engineer, was the inventor of the first digital music player in 1979, some 22 years before the iPod.
IBM introduced the first smartphone called Simon 15 years before the iPhone hit the market.
Alan Kay’s tablet computer was featured in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic motion picture “2001: A Space Odyssey” some 42 years before Jobs gave birth to the iPad.
And it was Charles Csuri’s 1965 film about a hummingbird that was the first digitally animated movie and not Pixar’s 1995 Academy Award nominated Toy Story.

All this is proof that when it comes to inventing, it is good to be first, but it is far better to be best.

For all you inventors out there, including my own clients, do not despair if you failed to make the Top 50 list. Reviews of Time’s lists of past top inventions have not proven to be a guarantee for future riches and fame. Curiously, Steve Jobs never made the Time’s Top 50, although he did pretty well for himself.

Time’s 2011 List of the 50 Top Inventions has something for all us. In a few years, we’ll know if there are any hall of famers in the 2011 invention class. Rather than bore you with a recap of Time’s list which you can easily read for yourself. Take a look and pick your own favorite invention. The list of inventions that Time put together this year is outstanding, but if I had to choose just one favorite, my choice would be DRACO, a new drug being developed by MIT that promises to eliminate the Common Cold.

America Invents Act Webinar Inventor Highlights

Robert Montgomery — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 14:01:49 +0000

Dateline: Washington,DC – October 31, 2011
Event: United States Patent Office’s Webinar on the America Invents Act
Speakers:

David Kappos, Director of the USPTO
Teresa Stanek Rea, Deputy Director of the USPTO
Robert L. Stoll, Commissioner for Patents
Bernard Knight, USPTO General Counsel
James D. Smith, BPAI Chief Administrative Patent Judge

Below are the highlights impacting “small-entity” inventors from the October 31^stWebinar held by the top brass of the Patent Office for the intellectual property community. The recently signed into law America Invents Act was the topic.

Current backlog of unexamined pending patent applications is estimated at 669,625.
The goal for pending patent applications by 2014 is 350,000 with all applications being examined within 10 months. The 10 month period is important because it will allow two months for inventors to make a decision on whether to file for foreign patents.
By 2014, the goal for bringing a patent application to a final disposition will be 20 months. 20 months is considered important because patent applications are not published and made public prior to 19 months.
The Patent Office reported a 5% increase in patent applications filed this year with projections for a continued 5% increase each of the next few years.
The new Micro-Entity classification for low income inventors, who will receive a 75% discount off Patent Office fees, is not expected to be implemented for 12-18 months.
The Patent Office is planning on hiring and training 1500 new Patent Examiners starting immediately.
The Patent Office is accepting patent applications into the 1-Year Expedited Patent Application Examination program. The cost is $2400.00 for “small-entity” inventors, a 50% savings from the normal fee. The maximum number of applications for this faster service is 10,000 per fiscal year.
Contrary to popular understanding, the America Invents Act does not guarantee that the Patent Office will keep 100% of the fees that are collected from inventors, although this is the stated objective of the law. Each year, Congress must appropriate funds to run the Patent Office. For the current fiscal year, Congress allowed the Patent Office to keep all of the collected fees.
Prior to the America Invents Act being signed into law by President Obama on September 16, 2011, Congress diverted $208,000,000.00 of paid inventor fees to other Congressional uses.
When Director Kappos took office a little over two years ago, he placed a heavy emphasis on improving the quality of issued patents. Patent Examiners were encouraged to take whatever reasonable time that was necessary to award or to finally reject an application. Part of the increased backlog was the result of this emphasis on quality. Director Kappos does recognize the need to find a balance between quality and timeliness. According to recent Patent Office’s statistics, the balance is starting to be achieved.
As of today, the United States remains a First To Invent country. The change to First To File will not begin until March 16, 2013.

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

Robert Montgomery — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:31:27 +0000

San Francisco, California was where it was all happening this month of October and your Invention Guru was there.

STEVE JOBS –

Apple Corporation of nearby Cupertino in the Silicon Valley lost its creative, spiritual and managerial leader in Steve Jobs. Jobs was the undisputed American innovation icon of today. His mind was responsible for so much that we take for granted, such as the iPhone, iPad, iPod, iTunes, Pixar Animation, the World Wide Web that was created on his NeXT Computers and so much more. His loss is great.

I was fortunate to be in the area when the world came to pay tribute to Steve Jobs. The world of Apple from the company headquarters located at One Infinite Loop (I love the name of that street) to your local Mall all stopped for a day in tribute. Hail! Hail! Steve Jobs!

CABLE CARS –

When the subject is San Francisco, Cable Cars are near the top of the list.

Three Cable Car routes through the center of the city continue to operate as both basic transportation and as tourist attractions. The most popular for tourists is the Powell-Hyde line going from Market Street near the city’s commercial center up to Nob Hill and back down to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Originally the street cars were pulled up and down the steep hills of town by horses. The hills go up as high as a 40 story building and then immediately back down the other side. So it came to Inventor Andrew S. Hallidie in August 1873 to patent the Cable Car system that we have today. Hallidie and his partners formed the profitable Traction Railway Company in 1875 to move people up and down the hills of San Francisco.

In Hallidie’s design, there is a constantly moving wire cable installed below street level with energy supplied by a centrally located power house replacing horse power. In operation, a grip is engaged to pull the car; and to stop, the grip is released and a brake employed. San Francisco’s jump on, hang on and jump off Cable Cars system is a very simple, effective and timeless system.

TONY BENNETT –

The song most closely attached to San Francisco is without question I Left My Heart In San Francisco. It was an accident that it is still known and performed today. The song was originally composed in 1954 by George Cory and Douglass Cross for the forgotten operatic singer Claramae Turner. Turner thought so little of the composition that she chose to not even record the song. By sheer luck, Tony Bennett’s long-time pianist and arranger, Ralph Sharon, stumbled upon the song and promoted it to Bennett for a performance in San Francisco’s famed Fairmount Hotel in 1961. The song was eventually recorded in 1962 as the B-side (the non-promoted side) of the forgettable Once Upon A Time. Again luck intervened when disc jockeys started playing the flip side and the rest is history. I Left My Heart In San Francisco surprisingly peaked at only #19 but endured through time. What began as an accident for Bennett in 1961 has become his signature song, which he has sung regularly for 50 years, including on his current 2011 tour. Still recording and performing at 85, Tony Bennett is enjoying another top 10 album with Duets II. And if you’re wondering if Tony really did leave his heart in the city by the bay, a two-story sculpture of his heart can be found in Union Square in the heart of San Francisco.

Some may wonder what a nice nostalgic story about I Left My Heart In San Francisco is doing in a Blog directed towards inventors. The story has two messages:

It is true in life, and especially when dealing with intellectual property, perseverance is a vital ingredient. Perseverance is exactly how a song written for, but rejected by, an artist of little fame somehow is discovered on the flip side of an unsuccessful record some 8 years later, which by luck was sung by one of the top recording stars of all time.
I Left My Heart In San Francisco is used to illustrate the intellectual property rights of Copyrights. The original songwriters, Cory and Cross, composed the song and copyrighted it to preserve their rights. The Copyright’s publishing rights were licensed to Columbia Records who then gave the right to Tony Bennett to make a recording of it. The record itself had yet another Copyright to protect the sound recording. Copyrights are used to establish rights to music, recordings, motion pictures, visual arts, jewelry designs, computer software, and other similar creative endeavors.

Patent Reform Is Law: Here’s Some Valuable Advice

Robert Montgomery — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:11:22 +0000

President Obama signed into law the America Invents Act on September 16, 2011. The major change that everyone is talking about is the United States conversion from First To Invent to First to File. This is big. There are additional reforms going into place that will impact inventors now and for years to come.

Presently, the patent process is in a transition period which is expected to last until March 16, 2013. What should an inventor do? Always the best advice is to consult with a licensed Patent Practitioner. However, before you do, here’s some valuable advice.

1. As we transition to First To File, an inventor needs to understand the difference between an Invention and an Idea that is not yet ready for patenting. See my previous Blog post <>.

2. Your Invention Guru expects that Provisional Patent Applications filings will be abused as inventors rush to be the first to file. There are legitimate reasons to use a provisional patent application; however, inventors need to know that a provisional patent application is not a one year patent.

The key take away here is: A provisional patent application that fails to fully disclose the technical details describing how to make and use the invention does not have rights over another inventor who files a utility patent application including all of the specifics. Therefore, it is fine to file a provisional patent application, but don’t expect it to have full patent rights.

A provisional patent application filed for an invention has no effect whatsoever for a subsequently filed design patent.

For further information concerning Provisional Patent Applications see my Blog at <>.

3. Although First To Invent priority is still the law of the land until 2013, it is in an inventor’s best interests to file a non-provisional patent application (design, plant or utility) with all of the specifics as soon as possible while also maintaining documentation proving first to invent.

Now here is where it gets a little confusing: unlike other First To File countries, the United States will still allow a one-year grace period to inventors that disclose or sell their invention without forfeiting their ability to file for a patent. Most other countries require a patent application be filed before any public disclosure or offer for sale.

This one-year grace period does not extend to another inventor who invents and files for a patent on the same, or very a similar invention, created separately.

Although First To File doesn’t become law until March 16, 2013, it is best practice to always complete and file a properly prepared design or utility patent application sooner than later.

While the United States is still a First To Invent country, you may want to read the following Blog <>.

4. During the transition period, it is recommended that inventors continue to maintain proper documentation to establish a first to invent date while diligently working towards finishing their invention and getting a proper patent application filed.

5. New Patent Office fees went into effect on Monday, September 19. The fees of importance to “small-entity” inventors are now:

Utility Patent Filing Fee: E-Filing = $530.00, Mailed Fee = $625.00
Utility Patent Issuance Fee = $870.00

Additional Independent Claim Fee (in excess of 3) = $125.00
Additional Claim Fee for Excess of 20 Total Claims = $30.00

Provisional Filing Fee = $125.00 – (no discount for e-Filing)

Design Filing Fee = $265.00 – (no discount for e-Filing)
Design Issuance Fee = $495.00

Request for Continued Examination Fee = $ 465.00
Request for Prioritized Examination Fee = $2400.00

Petition to Revive (Unavoidably) Fee = $310.00
Petition to Revive (Unintentional) Fee = $930.00

Extension Of Time to file Fees:

1 mos. = $ 75.00
2 mos. =$ 280.00
3 mos. = $ 635.00
4 mos. = $ 990.00
5 mos. = $1345.00

Utility Patent Maintenance Fees:

First Stage = $1130.00
First Stage Grace Period Surcharge = $75.00
Second Stage = $1425.00
Second Stage Grace Period Surcharge = $75.00
Third Stage = $2365.00
Third Stage Grace Period Surcharge = $75.00
Notice of Appeal = $310.00
Appeal Brief Filing Fee = $310.00

America Invents Act: How Patent Reform Affects Inventors

Robert Montgomery — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 17:20:29 +0000

The America Invents Act was finally signed into law by President Obama on September 16, 2011. Did anyone feel the earth shake like I did? Much of what we knew about patent law has changed. Is the new law good? As with most transformable moments, time will tell. Check back with your Invention Guru in 5 years, maybe 10. It will take that much time before everything in the new law shakes out.

Not everything in the new law will take effect all at once. The Patent Office has some flexibility in rolling out all of the reforms. The absolute single biggest change is the establishment of priority rights for inventors from First To Invent to First To File. This won’t begin until after March 16, 2013, a year and a half in the future.

Let’s look at the highlights of what a typical individual or small business inventor needs to know now about The America Invents Act. Some things will start changing as of Monday morning, September 19, and soon thereafter.

A new classification of inventor called “Micro Entities” will receive a 75% fee discount. “Small Entity” Inventors will continue to have a 50% reduction.

Micro Entity classification won’t roll out until the Patent Office establishes a new fee schedule; however, the qualifications that will be used are:

1.     Inventor must first qualify for “small entity” status.
2.     The inventor can not be listed as an inventor on more than 3 previous patents (provisionals excluded).
3.     In the year prior to filing, the inventor’s household income must be less than 3 times the median (about $150,000.00).
4.     The inventor’s patent application can not be assigned, or reasonably expected to be assigned, to an entity whose income would fail to meet the “micro entity” test.

Immediately the general Patent Office fees, including post-issuance maintenance fees, will have a 15% surcharge.
On November 15, 2011, the Patent Office will impose a $400.00 surcharge for patent applications not filed electronically.
Inventors can request a “Prioritized Examination” of a patent application within twelve months. The Patent Office fee for this expedited service is an extra $4800.00, or $2400.00 for small entities.
The Patent Office will speed up the patent application process at no cost to the inventor for inventions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions or provide energy conservation.
The Patent Office wants to establish pro bono programs to help small entity inventors. Patent practitioners will be encouraged to do free work every so often for inventors with very limited finances.
For patent disputes, the standard for an inter partes reexamination of a patent is relaxed allowing a requestor to only show “that there is a reasonable likelihood that the requestor would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims.”
The Patent Office will have the financial resources and control to hire the staff necessary to properly examine patent applications faster.

There is much more to learn about our new patent laws. It is almost certain that some provisions will be good and a few maybe not so much. The patent reforms expect to:

shorten the time between patent application and final disposition,
reduce the excessive patent litigation which has gone wild recently, and
promote investment in new products with the result of more jobs.

Accomplishing those feats will make the America Invents Act worthwhile.

Many people, your Invention Guru included, have been opposed to the United States moving away from First To Invent to the European model of First To File. The reasoning for keeping First To Invent was that it has served America very well for so long – there’s no reason to fix something that’s not broken. Implementation of First To File won’t start until March of 2013. By then, strategies that work with the new patent law are expected to be developed to protect the small entity, and the new micro entity, inventor from being run over by big business.

The gates of a brave new patent world have been opened.

The Invention Idea Man – Steve Jobs

Robert Montgomery — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 14:46:20 +0000

(referencing Simon & Garfunkle’s “Mrs. Robinson”) …

Where have you gone Steven Paul Jobs?

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson?

Inventin’ Steve has left and gone away.

Steven Paul Jobs

Jobs’ health challenges have finally and sadly forced him to step away from being CEO of Apple, a company he took to the top twice. The mind is still brilliant but the body betrays.

It has been said that no one can ever go home again. This proverb is definitely untrue in Jobs’ case. After being forced out of Apple, Jobs returned more than a decade later to save his beloved company. Since his second tour of duty started in July 1997, Jobs grew the iconic American company into one of the two largest corporations in the world. Additionally, Apple is the unquestioned leader for personal technology. Although his plans are to stay on as Chairman of the Board, Jobs will relinquish his day to day leadership.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Steve Jobs and his fantastic accomplishments the past several days. While doing research, I came across an article that I wrote back in March 2010. It’s worth reading again.
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Is Steve Jobs America’s Greatest Living Inventor?

by Robert Montgomery on March 17th, 2010

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” -Steve Jobs

Is Steve Jobs America’s Greatest Living Inventor? Here’s why it’s hard to argue against him.

Steven Paul Jobs was born to bi-cultural parents in Wisconsin who gave him up for adoption by Paul and Clara Jobs. His childhood was spent in the apricot orchards of California, later to be known as Silicon Valley. Jobs attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon but dropped out in 1972 after only one semester. While searching for his life’s work, he got a position with Atari being in charge of designing the circuitry for the computer game Breakout. Breakout became widely popular and was in large measure responsible for the commercial success of the Atari 2600. The Atari 2600 was the first microprocessor based game box for the home having interchangeable cartridges, the forerunner of the X-Box, PlayStation, Nintendo and the Wii.

After a brief period of travel in search of spiritual and philosophical enlightenment, Jobs returned to California and reacquainted himself with his former Atari colleague, Steve Wozniak. Wozniak had moved on from Atari to Hewlett-Packard, but Jobs convinced him to quit his day job and join him in the development of the personal computer. In 1976, Jobs 21 and Wozniak 26 changed the world forever with the founding of the Apple Computer Company. The personal computer industry for the masses was born.

A stock offering made Jobs and Wozniak multi-millionaires but answerable to Apple’s Board of Directors. Jobs with Apple pioneered the use of mouse-driven graphics for desktop computers in the early 1980s. After creating the personal computer industry with the Apple II and then expanding it with the graphic-rich MacIntosh and Lisa computers, Jobs lost a power struggle with Apple’s Board of Directors in May of 1985 and was relieved of his duties.

Immediately following his dismissal from Apple, Jobs founded NeXT Step Computers. NeXt was a computer platform development company specializing in computers for education and for business software development. Although not the commercial success of Apple, it is interesting to note that it was on a Jobs’ NeXT computer that Tim Berners-Lee is credited with developing the original World Wide Web.

Jobs turned his attention to animation with his 1986 purchase of the computer graphics division of Lucasfilm Ltd. The new acquisition was renamed Pixar Animation Studios. As time evolved, Pixar became the dominant producer of animated feature films for the motion picture industry. The movies include: Toy Story, Toy Story 2, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars, Ratatouille, WALL-E, and Up, the 2010 Academy Award nominated Best Picture and winner of Best Animated Feature. Pixar and The Walt Disney Company eventually merged in 2006 with Jobs joining the Disney Board of Directors.

1997 saw Apple approach Jobs with a reunion proposition of sorts. Apple needed improved software to replace the aging and slow Mac OS. NeXT STEP software was selected and sold to Apple for $400 million including an open door back into Apple for Jobs. Jobs returned first as an “informal Advisor to the CEO” and then Apple’s CEO six months later. Because Apple was in corporate survival mode, Jobs promised to reinvent the company for a salary of just $1.00 per year.

With Jobs back at the helm, Apple’s reinvention has been nothing short of an amazing American success story. In 2003, Apple revolutionized the way we buy and listen to music with the iPod and iTunes. A few years later, the iPhone gave us newly imagined capabilities for the cell phone. The iPad was introduced in January 2010 promising to save newspapers, magazines and book publishers.

History is always the final arbiter when it comes to deciding if Steve Jobs should be called the greatest American inventor of our time. His credentials seem overwhelming:

* beginning the home computer based gaming craze;
* creating the personal computer industry for both home and business;
* bringing computers into the classroom;
* being a vital conduit for the creation of the World Wide Web;
* setting a new standard for animated motion pictures;
* saving the recording industry;
* redefining the cellular telephone;
* and now, becoming the expected savior of all things print with the iPad.

All of this seems to your Invention Guru to be an extremely compelling argument for anointing Steven Paul Jobs as America’s Greatest Living Inventor.

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With Steve Jobs stepping down, America is forced to compete with the world without its greatest inventor. Steve Jobs knew exactly what we wanted before we even wanted it and then gave us something a thousand times better than what we thought we wanted. Is anyone out there able to fill such a void?

Before leaving, Steve Jobs gave us just a little hint of what’s to come. In June 2010, Steve Jobs’ vision of the future had the iPad capturing the dominant portion of market share away from Personal Computers. Just think about that for a second – Jobs was the driving force that brought PCs into homes and offices, and will also be the force taking them away. Genius!