A friend I made several years ago told me of his encounters with patents. He was a WW II vet, used his VA to get an engineering degree, became a highly regarded, and respected knowledgeable expert in the Lighting Protection, and EMP (electromagnetic pulse) field. Who held many patents in said field. He lost a small fortune trying to protect his patents from infringement. He told me a patent is just "directions for someone to steal your idea". He sued, and sued many companies with deeper pockets than he had, and just ran out of money.

Norm Parmley


Relative to your design, assuming it would pass the obviousness test (or that is, passes because no-one is going down this road and it was obvious they knew it was there), you could get a patent on it, if no one, otherwise, had filed for such in any country. OK, I'm not a lawyer, and I'm explaining this from the view point of a "common man" who has been involved in patents.

Some time ago, I filed the paperwork for a patent involving the coupling of more than one DC power generation unit (don't confuse this with Generators vs. Alternators) to a common workload.
Because I was doing something incredibly simple, almost text book, I was able to defeat an argument before it was raised by stating in my paperwork that everyone trying this was going after very complex circuitry when diodes would solve the problem of "Kirchhoff's law" and back flow of current through the parallel generation units.

I abandoned this patent when I found that in the EAA chapter where I was in TX, two different builders had done this without knowing that other people were ignoring the simplicity....

What I was after was being able to have two or more generators/alternators (any combination) of the same "power band"
(e.g., 12-14VDC, 24-28VDC, etc.) be able to power a load and have one of the units fail and the other automatically pick up the load w/o a pilot having to do anything. My thinking was, you lose an engine in a multi-engine aircraft and you don't really want to be dealing with rudder, throttles, props, and mixture along with flipping switches for power.

This could also be an issue for emergency vehicles, fishing vessels, etc. People dealing with a dead alternator/generator need the lights in the dash to work while the other equipment is functioning (many truck bed platforms have the original electrical wiring with additional wiring for a HPO Alternator to drive pumps, lights, etc., and being able to handle the original power system's needs if that alternator dies, would be nice...).

Back to the EAA guys: I could not go forward because their aircraft were flying with this circuitry that predated my initial filing by about 3 years. And my paperwork did what I really intended -- made this non-patentable (this should have been done in the early '70s with silicon diodes...)

So, I mentioned this so that you might want to do the research on your "invention" and see if anyone has done the thing you are doing. You may find that in your claims you have to be quite specific, rather than being generic with multiple "sub-claims".

Again, I'm not a IP attorney, don't play one on TV and did not stay in whatever that hotel/motel is that they talk about.
Lastly, YMMV.

Regards,
Steve Thompson


Wording of the patent is vital to getting the protection it should afford you. It should be broad as possible to cover as many variations and alterations of the idea as possible. For example, if your patent states that a subcomponent should be spring activated, replacing the spring with an air cylinder, hydraulic actuator, elastomer, solenoid, etc., etc. will allow others to use your idea to their benefit and your loss.

Think like someone trying to steal your patent and how you would circumvent the patent and then adapt your wording against that.

Of course that will be only so much help in this age where foreign firms will make direct copies completely disregarding the patent. They know defending a patent in court is slow and expensive and they'll make a lot of money in the mean time.

Justice delayed is justice denied!

If your patent is truly worth a lot it may be better to sell the rights to it and then let that company (with presumably deeper pockets) defend it if/when needed. If your patent is disruptive to an established technology, a company profiting from the status quo might buy your patent to bury it! Be wary of that if you're expecting royalties and have a clause requiring diligent timely progress towards producing the patented product. Again get a good lawyer to draft and negotiate that IP contract!

I remember hearing that the inventor of Dolby sound released Dolby A with Dolby B, C, etc. already in mind. As soon as his competitors reverse engineered and developed their versions of Dolby A (at no small
expense) he released Dolby B. As soon as his competitors reverse engineered and developed their versions of Dolby B (at no small expense) he released Dolby C.

It is a competitive world where the ideas and technology that we invest our souls in and may find so intriguing and personally meaningful are to others mere commodities devoid of any meaning except for how they can be used for corporate gain. Like any tool, patents are a double edge sword that can help us or hurt us depending on which way it is swung and how they are wielded.

Regards,
Brad Chubb


That is really sad.  I can say that not all patent lawyers are the same, majority of them are not "competent" in my view as they only practice "by the book" and have no creativity at all. It is not possible to sue your lawyer and argue he is not good, as he just does all what others are doing.  You need to hire the most expensive guys, because for each case, there is only one winner and others losers.  So the one who wins for one client likely will win for the other client, and then the experienced clients will understand the winning guy has something mysterious that others do not have.  He therefore will be sought after by all, and become more expensive as it goes.

But an individual does not have that amount of money.  So he needs to look for that expensive guy who can take his case on contingency, meaning if no win, then no pay. I have a friend who is now a multi-millionaire living in San Jose, Ca.  He struggled for years with his multiple patents, and by the end won one big case when he gets close to 60.  He hired a lawyer who was very competent but took his case on contingency fee.

I say this out of experience because I am a patent attorney.  I know perfectly well that it is not nice for me to reveal the truth of this profession, but the logic behind this is just so simple. I think the law does not even allow me to say similar things to a client (meaning I cannot work for anyone who read this message), but I know this forums is for people interested in engineering ideas and not lawsuits. So it is OK for me to tell you guys this.

Gordon Gao

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