In the “Believe it or not” category:

1)      The USPTO is reducing a number of its most used fees on 1/1/14.

 

The utility patent issue fee drops from $1780 to $960 for a large entity;

                                                                            $890 to $480 for a small entity;

                                                                             $445 to $240 for a micro entity.

 

            Similar drops for design and plant issue fees as well as reissue issue fees.

            The publication fees for early, voluntary or normal publication drops to $0.

The USPTO is eliminating the fee for recording a patent assignment that is submitted electronically.

2)       In the PCT world there will be price breaks for small and micro entities:

Transmittal fees

            Search fees (although probably still get better deals from Korea and Russia)
            Supplemental Search fees
            Late payment fees
            Fee for Transmitting Application to International Bureau to act as the RO;
            Preliminary Examination fees;  
            Supplemental Examination fees.

3)      Check here for the full fee schedule for fees paid on or after January 1, 2014.

Lilly scientists prosecuted for trade secret theft

Two former Eli Lilly scientists were arrested and charged by the U.S. Government for stealing and transmitting Lilly trade secrets to a Chinese company.  Guoqing Cao and Shuyu Li, both research scientists with doctoral degrees, have been charged with multiple counts of trade secrets theft and conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sections 1832 and 371, according to an Indictment that was recently unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis.  The charges against the two naturalized U.S. citizens, who will remain in custody for leaking trade secrets to a Lilly competitor in China, provides an abject lesson for both pharmaceutical companies that fail to safeguard trade secrets and other proprietary information and employees who get caught by federal authorities.

The New U.S. Patent Law: What You Need to Know and How It Will Affect Your Strategy

Here is a presentation recently given to the SPIE Advanced Lithography Symposium in San Jose.


In "The New U.S. Patent Law: What You Need to Know and How It Will Affect Your Strategy," Charles Szmanda describes the most important aspects of the new patent law. These include: (1) the "first inventor to file" system, which takes effect on March 16, 2013 and replaces the "first to invent" system in current law; (2) new ways to challenge issued patents such as "Post Grant Review" and "Inter Partes" review; (3) prior art submission during prosecution of another inventor's patent application; (4) prioritized examination of applications; and (5) prior user rights. He also discusses how these new elements of the law will alter the competitive environment but will also present a number of opportunities for formulating a successful patent strategy within that new environment.

If you don't see the presentation on the screen, you can see it here:  http://spie.org/app/spietv/default.aspx?video=2202956471001

From Fabrics to Bottles and Back to Fabrics

On May 8, 1951, the first Dacron® men’s suits were introduced by the Hart, Schaffner & Marx Co. in New York City. The fabric was actually 55% Dacron® and 45% worsted wool, made by Deering, Milliken & Co. This was the first time polyester was used as used in clothing. It is durable, washes well, resists soaps detergents and dry cleaning solvents and resists mechanical abrasion. 

Dacron® was, at the time, a registered trademark of DuPont and is based on a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate (PET). This polymer is used in fibers for textiles, films, those familiar soda bottles and as engineering plastics. The water and soda bottles made of PET comprise a huge fraction of the floating garbage fields in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. While these bottles eventually break up mechanically into a kind of “sand,” the polymer itself is not biodegradable. This PET “sand” is now washing up on beaches around the world.

But creative people are at work. At present, there are 2,721 issued U.S. patents that describe how PET bottles can be recycled and turned into fabric. Some of these patents were issued very recently. And the work has not stopped. There are now more than 2,000 pending patent applications that also cover how PET can be recycled into fabrics. While some of these technologies recycle the bottles directly, producing a stiff fabric useful in blue jeans, for example, others describe how the polymers can be broken down to lower molecular weight materials for softer, more supple fabrics. Still other patents describe breaking down the polyester all the way to its component monomers.

It is interesting how things can come full circle.

Accelerated Examination about to start

A new accelerated patent application examination program is beginning May 4, 2011. Applicants can obtain accelerated examination for eligible patent applications upon payment of an appropriate fee.

The basics:

- The application must be filed on or after May 4, 2011. If a patent applicant has a patent pending prior to this time, the applicant can still take advantage of the accelerated examination program by filing a continuation on or after May 4, 2011.

- U.S. national stage entry patent applications from PCT patent applications are not eligible for prioritized examination. However, a continuation patent application filed from such a U.S. national stage entry patent application may be eligible.

- The fee will be $4,130. No small entity fee reduction.

- A publication fee of $300 is also required, normally required when the patent is issued.

- The claims are limited to no more than 30 total claims, of which no more than four can be independent.

- The application must contain a signed Declaration and include all USPTO fees that are due when filing.

- The number of accelerated applications is limited to 10,000 patent applications for the current year. - Requests for non-publication are not allowed

- Extensions of time are not allowed.

The USPTO states it will provide a final disposition of a patent application through this program within 12 months of the accelerated examination request. “Final disposition” is defined as:
1) Mailing a Notice of Allowance
2) Mailing a final Office Action
3) Applicant filing a Notice of Appeal
4) Declaring an interference
5) Applicant filing a Request for Continued Examination (RCE)
6) Applicant abandoning the patent application.

Typical examination takes 3 years or longer depending on the technology area. The program provides significant acceleration of the examination process. Accelerated examination can be particularly valuable in technology areas that rapidly moving. Accelerated examination can also be valuable to start-ups that need to rapidly protect their technology. Extensions of time for responding to Office Actions during the examination process are still allowed but that will remove the application from the accelerated examination program.

U.S. Government Shutdown Looms: Effect on Patent Filing and Prosecution

We have received the following press release from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office:


USPTO Prepares for Possible Government Shutdown

In the event of a government shutdown on April 9, 2011, the United States Patent and Trademark Office will remain open and continue to operate as usual for a period of six business days – through Monday, April 18, 2011 -- because the USPTO has enough available reserves, not linked to the current fiscal year, to remain in operation until then. Should a shutdown occur and continue longer than the six-day period, we anticipate that limited staff will be able to continue to work to accept new electronic applications and maintain IT infrastructure, among other functions. More information will be posted on [the USPTO] website as it becomes available. Thank you.

Mr. Shaw and the Flashing Cat's Eyes

You know those little reflectors in the middle of the road that show you where the lanes are?  Someone had to invent them.  And someone did.  On April 3, 1934, Mr. Percy Shaw applied for a British patent entitled "Improvements relating to Blocks for Road Surface."   

A key aspect of the invention was not only that they reflected the light from oncoming cars but that their raised surfaces “yield when travelled over by a vehicle wheel and sink to the level of the road surface," so that they would not be damaged when run over by vehicle tires or, worse, a snow plow.  They were mounted on a resilient white rubber cushion in a metal holder below the road surface so that they could be pushed down and pop right back up again.

As the story goes, Mr. Shaw was driving down the curvy road from the Old Dolphin public house in the town of Clayton Heights to his home in Halifax.  As Mr. Shaw was rounding a curve, a cat on a fence along the edge of the road looked at the car – and its eyes reflected his headlights back to Shaw, allowing him turn and stay on the road.  That's how he got the idea.

According to British patent No. 436,290, Mr. Shaw’s first claim reads, “A block of the type specified for road surface marking wherein the base of the rubber filling is partially supported within the metal holder so that the filling will yield by displacement and deformation or by either, when travelled over by a vehicle wheel or stepped upon by a pedestrian and sink to the level of the road surface or thereabouts.”  

Based on his invention, Mr. Shaw started Reflecting Roadstuds Ltd. to manufacture and sell his reflectors.


Protect your invention.  We can help.  Call us at 1-508-836-4143.
Or see our web site at http://www.patent-practice.com

The Dawn of Electronic Computing

On March 25, 1946, a project to build a computer called ENIAC was finished by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. The contract to build ENIAC was intiated by the US Army under the Codename "Project PX" and was classified "Top Secret."
It was not the first ever computer but ENIAC is re...garded as the first successful, general digital computer, a "Turing machine," capable of being programmed for any task.
ENIAC weighed over 27,000 kg (60,000 lb), and contained more than 18,000 vacuum tubes - "valves" that were used as switches, replacing the mechanical relays of previous computers. It took six technicians working full time to test and replace 2000 of the tubes each month.
In 1948, a major upgrade was made to allow data transfer to be done independently of calculation. This simplified programming and increased the speed considerably - so that an artillery shell trajectory could be calculated in about 30 seconds - half the actual flight time of the shell.
ENIAC was transferred to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, where it was in continuous operation until it was finally shut down at 11:45 p.m. on October 2, 1955.
So it goes.

The First Patent Law

On March 19, 1474 the world’s first patent law was enacted in Venice.  That law granted patent protection, the right to exclude others from making, selling or using an invention, for 10 years.   Like the patent laws that came after it, the law was introduced to attract inventors and investors to Venice who would create new economic activities there.  

What is remarkable about this law is that, even though it is brief, it contains most of the elements of modern patent laws.  And the genius of it was that it cost the government nothing.  Here is what it said:

“There are in this city and also there come temporarily… men from different places¹ and most clever minds, capable of devising and inventing all manner of ingenious contrivances.  And should it be provided, that the works and contrivances invented by them, others having seen them should not take their honor, men of such kind would exert their minds, [and] invent and make things which would be of no small utility and benefit our State². 

Therefore… each person who will make in this city any new and ingenious contrivance, not made heretofore in our dominion³, as soon as it is reduced to perfection⁴, so that it can be used and exercised⁵, shall give notice of the same⁶…  It being forbidden to any other in any territory and place of ours to make any other contrivance in the form and resemblance thereof ⁷, without the consent of the author up to ten years⁸.  And, however, should anybody make it, the aforesaid author and inventor will have the liberty to cite him before any office of this city⁹, by which office the aforesaid who shall infringe be forced to pay him the sum of one hundred ducats¹⁰ [about $7,000 in today's money] and the [infringing] contrivance be immediately destroyed¹¹.  Our government shall be at liberty to take and use in his need any of said contrivances, provided that no others than the authors shall exercise them¹².”*

And here are the elements contained in many modern patent laws:

1.     Rights not limited to residents.

2.     Societal benefit in exchange for the grant of exclusivity.

3.     Invention must be novel within the city.

4.     Reduction to practice.

5.     The invention must be enabled.

6.     Disclosure of the invention is a condition of exclusivity.

7.     Infringement includes equivalents.

8.     A fixed term of protection (10 years) is provided.

9.     Infringement action before administrative (not criminal) bodies is provided.

10.  Damage award for infringement is prescribed.

11.  Infringing goods must be confiscated and destroyed.

12.  Eminent domain of intellectual property is limited to supply by inventor.

England followed with the Statute of Monopolies in 1623 under King James I, which declared that patents could only be granted for “projects of new invention.”  

In 1789, Article I, section 8 of the United States Constitution explicitly authorized patent laws in the United States “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts.”

Do you have an invention?  We can help patent it for you.  See our web site at www.patent-practice.com.  


*Adapted from "Patents for Chemicals, Pharmaceuticals and Biotechnology" by Philip W. Grubb, pp. 10-11, Oxford University Press, (1999).

Can You Patent "Something For Nothing?"

Section 101 of the U.S. Patent Act seems simple enough. You can patent a “new and useful” process, machine, article of manufacture or improvements of these things. But the invention has to be “new” and it has to be “useful.” Now, for the invention to be new, two other parts of the statute apply. In 35 USC §102, we have all of the requirements for novelty. And in 35 USC §103, the requirement for non obviousness is promulgated. We’ll discuss those at a later time.


But it might be fun to discuss what it means to be “useful.” How about a machine that gives us more energy output than we put in? How about a perpetual motion machine?


Now, something that can't possibly work, such as a perpetual motion machine, is arguably not very useful. So, in theory, one should not be able to obtain a patent on such a device. But right now, there are at least 8 issued U.S. patents, apparently still in force, that describe what appear to be perpetual motion machines.


For example, in U.S. Patent 7,379,286 "Quantum vacuum energy extraction", issued on May 27, 2008, we read “When atoms enter into suitable micro Casimir cavities a decrease in the orbital energies of electrons in atoms will thus occur. Such energy will be captured in the claimed devices. Upon emergence form [sic] such micro Casimir cavities the atoms will be re-energized by the ambient electromagnetic quantum vacuum.” It certainly looks like we’re getting energy for free. But how are the atoms “re-energized by the ambient electromagnetic quantum vacuum?” Where does that energy come from? The patent states that the “process is also consistent with the conservation of energy in that all usable energy does come at the expense of the energy content of the electromagnetic quantum vacuum." Good!


Now, there is a lot of fancy talk about “zero-point-energy,” “Casimir cavities” and “a supply of fluid characterized by its ability to… take in electromagnetic radiation from the ambient surroundings.” What “fluid” would not do that? Anyway, even though we have no idea what all that means, there is something about it that doesn’t seem quite right. This is an issued patent that describes a device that is supposed to give us energy for nothing.  And all we have to do is to harvest that energy from the "electromagnetic quantum vacuum."  The examiner allowed this patent on first action without even considering that this device might not work as claimed.


You might be able to spot some perpetual motion patents. Look for phrases like “zero-point energy,” or in the claims for “alternator and electric motor work in combination,” or “spring driven apparatus which, in essence, feeds upon itself,” or “all of the flux from a permanent magnet” (all???) in combination with “enable useful work,” or, a favorite, “A chamber with a partition which lets gas molecules flow one way and not the other.” Or maybe you can find your own.


Have fun!

Build Me a Stradivarius

Here's an article about printing anything - including 3-dimensional objects with, for example, an ink-jet printer.  Fascinating.

http://www.economist.com/node/18114221

USPTO opens satellite office in Detroit

Interesting move by the USPTO to establish new jobs and help with the patent process. Detroit is also and interesting choice. However, in the on-line statement the following is said: “The current backlog of patent applications delays the commercialization of American innovation and the creation of new jobs and economic growth.” . Hmmm...According to the statistics, of the top 10 companies that received patents in the US in 2010, fully 56.1% of the patents were issued to Japanese or Korean companies. Draw your own conclusions but I'm not sure "American Innovation" is as properly served as Locke would want us to think.

USPTO to Open First Satellite Office
in Detroit

U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke
and USPTO Director David Kappos
announced in December plans for the
USPTO to open its first satellite
office in Detroit, Mich., in 2011.
The new office is expected to create
more than 100 new jobs in its first
year and provide a boost to the
region’s innovation economy.
The office will represent the first
phase of the USPTO’s Nationwide
Workforce Program, an effort to hire
more patent examiners and seek out
additional resources and technical
expertise in locations across the
country. More information can be
found in the press release

Single Year Patent Filings Over 1M in China

You may see this title reported, but some explanation is needed to put it all in perspective.

On November 18, SIPO received its 1,000,925 application, of which 323,266 are for inventions, 337,659 for utility models and 340,000 for designs, representing 32.3%, 33.7% and 34% respectively.

By comparison, the total number of patent applications in the US for 2009 was 482,871of which 456,106 were for utility, 25,866 were design and 959 were plant applications.

CIPO PATENT RULES:
Rule 2 "Invention" in the Patent Law means any new technical solution relating to a product, a process or improvement thereof.
"Utility model" in the Patent Law means any new technical solution relating to the shape, the structure, or their combination, of a product, which is fit for practical use.
"Design" in the Patent Law means any new design of the shape, the pattern or their combination, or the combination of the color with shape or pattern, of a product, which creates an aesthetic feeling and is fit for industrial application. (Design also includes any integrated circuit design used on computer chips)

So the numbers are a bit misleading. However, make no mistake, the Chinese application rate is increasing at a rate of 24.1% from 2000-2008, with the US rate at 5.6%, EPO at 4.8%, Korea at 6.8% and Japan at NEGATIVE 0.8%.

Just thought ya might wanna know.

If You Invent It - Claim It.

Mr. Italo Marchiony had a problem.  He was selling a wonderful confection – an Italian lemon ice – from a push cart (also called a hokey-pokey) on Wall Street in Manhattan, and it was among the most popular treats of its day.  The problem was the container – a small liquor glass which was to be returned to the push cart after the customer was finished so that it could be cleaned and reused.  But Mr. Marchiony's customers were usually in a hurry and did not bring their glasses back - or the glasses got broken, increasing his overhead considerably.

So he went to work and invented a wonderful new, leak proof, edible ice cream cone and a mold for making it; for which he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 746,971 on December 13, 1903.  The mold was in four sections, all hinged together so that the small cups could be taken out without breaking them.  By pouring in a waffle batter and heating the mold in a very hot oven, Mr. Marchiony could make a large supply of the edible cups very quickly.  They even had a small handle.  Customers loved them. 

Unfortunately, Mr. Marchiony only claimed the mold in his patent  - not the cones.  So when Mr. Ernest A. Hamwi began selling waffle type cones filled with ice cream at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, Mr. Marchiony was powerless to stop him.

Fortunately, the story ends well.  Mr. Marchiony’s treats were so popular that by the time of his retirement in 1938, he had a fleet of 45 push carts in New York, operated by men he had hired.  He made an excellent living from his invention right through the great depression – and gave people jobs in the process.

But the moral of our story is this:  if you invent the ice cream cone and a mold for making it, and you wish to protect your invention, be sure to claim the mold and the cone.

What would cable TV be without the cable?

Look behind your TV set and you’ll probably find one.  It all seems so simple now.  Take a wire, surround it by a dielectric, insulating shield, surround that by a conducting shield and surround the whole thing by a plastic insulator.  It was not so simple on December 8, 1931 when Messrs. Lloyd Espenschied of Kew Gardens New York and Herman A. Affel of Ridgewood New Jersey were awarded U.S. Patent No. 1,835,031 for a “Concentric Conducting System.”  Per their employment agreement, they assigned their patent to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company. 

Telephone calls were sent down a “twisted pair” cable.  Transmitting one call was reasonably easy.  All you needed was a long enough pair of wires and a signal that was amplified enough to overcome the electrical resistance of the long wire.  One wire in the twisted pair carried the signal while the other wire was grounded.

Sending 10 calls or 100 calls on a twisted pair was only slightly more difficult.  The signals for each of the calls were divided into short slices of time on one end.  Each slice was given a turn on the wire and all you needed was a “carrier” signal of sufficiently high frequency to time them so that they could be reassembled on the other end.  Here is the problem:  more calls require higher frequencies – and the longer the cable, the more the multiplexed signal would bleed off to ground.

What was needed was a low capacitance cable, in which the interaction between the carrier signal and ground could be minimized.  If you have that, you can send not only telephone calls but many TV signals – and of course, many internet signals at the same time.  That's where the coaxial cable comes in; without which, even this blog would not be possible.

Don't Try This at Home!

Really - don't try this at home.  

His wife told him repeatedly not to do it.  But one day in 1845, while his wise and good wife was away, Professor Christian Friedrich Schönbein of the University of Basel in Switzerland was doing chemistry experiments in his own kitchen.  During the course of his experiments, he spilled a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids on his kitchen table and used wife's cotton apron - he was using it as a lab apron - to clean up the mess.  Realizing that his wife was on her way home, he finished cleaning up and hung the apron over a warm stove to dry.  Once dry, the apron ignited spontaneously and nearly burned down the house, which did not make Frau Schönbein very happy.

Professor Schönbein  discovered a new, safer (believe it or not) way to make nitrocellulose - what came to be known as "guncotton," a kind of smokeless gunpowder that gave off much less ash than black powder and released far more gas on ignition.  For his discovery, he was awarded U.S. Patent No. 4874 on December 5, 1846.  But the story doesn't end there.  It turns out that nitrocellulose can be dissolved in acetone and used for casting excellent polymer films.  As such, it was used as a varnish to coat furniture and billiard balls.  Add a little camphor to plasticize it and nitrocellulose is a great, although flammable, base for photographic movie films; for which it was used until 1951, when it was decided that a few too many movie theaters had been burned down.  Scientists also found nitrocellulose useful for detecting alpha particles and immobilizing proteins for studies in an atomic force microscope.

As for Schönbein, his wife did not throw him out.  He also was the first to discover ozone while he was experimenting with the electrolysis of water and also invented what came to be known as the fuel cell, used by astronauts to generate electricity and make water during space travel.

HERMAN HOLLERITH

Herman Hollerith was working at the US Census Bureau in 1884 when he filed his first patent entitled “Art of Compiling Statistics”, US 395,782.   It was a method is using punch cards to electronically tabulate the census data.  The census process, which generally took 8 years to complete, was finish in 1 year using Hollerith’s method.  He founded the Tabulating Machine Recording Co. to build these machines for the Census Bureau. In 1911 three other companies merged with him to form the Computing Tabulating Recording Co which in 1924 became the International Business Machine, or IBM. IBM is the assignee of more patents than any other US company.

Three Patents, Three Inventors

On November 23, 1897, there were three patents issued that improved transportation and enhanced our ability to communicate our ideas.



Pencils are a wonderful invention.  They are cheap, readily available, enabling - and almost worthless without a way to sharpen them.  By 1897, there had been many patents for pencil sharpeners - and all of them improved over using a jack-knife to whittle down the point.  But Mr. John Lee Love, a serial inventor from Fall River, Massachusetts had a better idea. He invented a very simple, portable pencil sharpener that many artists use to this day.  The pencil was put into the opening of the sharpener and rotated circumferentially by hand.  One advantage is that the shavings stayed inside the sharpener.  The invention had two gears and a blade to sharpen the Pencil as shown in the drawing.  Mr. Love was awarded U.S. Patent No. 594,114 for his invention.


In 1897, no one had yet figured out a safe, easy way to couple railroad cars together - and to decouple them when necessary - that is, until another serial inventor, Mr. Andrew Jackson Beard of Eastlake Alabama came along.  Mr. Beard invented the "Jenny Coupler," that allowed two railroad cars to hook together by simply bumping into each other.  In Mr. Beard's invention, a pair of "horizontal jaws engage each other to connect the cars," thus saving countless lives and limbs. Mr. Beard's invention is the very coupler used on railroad cars all over the world today. He was awarded U.S. Patent No. 594,059 for his invention but he never practiced it.  Instead, he sold the rights to his patent for $50,000, a tidy sum in those days.


If you want to build an electric trolley car, you might want to become familiar with U.S. Patent No. 594,286, awarded to Mr. Elbert R. Robinson, another serial inventor from Chicago IL.  Trolley cars are heavy.  So the electric motors that drive them draw a lot of electric current.  The problem was that the conventional wheels had too much electrical resistance.  Mr. Robinson solved the problem by casting a composite wheel from two different metals such as iron and brass wherein the brass was in a groove that made electrical contact with the track.  This invention permitted an entirely new way of constructing trolley wheels and enabled the wheels to draw current from an electrically charged track without heating up unnecessarily.  While Mr. Robinson's invention is no longer in use, it can be said that he made significant advances, not only to the art of building trolley cars but to materials science and metallurgy.


These three inventors were from different parts of the country and worked in different fields of endeavor but they had one thing in common.  All three were African Americans.

The Laser in Mr. Gould's Notebook

On November 9, 1957, Mr. Gordon Gould, of New York, New York, started writing down a description of an optical device he called a “laser” in his notebook.  It was a Saturday night and he couldn’t sleep. The following Wednesday, he found a Notary Public at a local store near his apartment and had his idea witnessed and notarized. 

His description was entitled "Some rough calculations on the feasibility of a LASER: Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.”  It was a complete description of his invention in which he combined the concept of optical pumping of atomic excited states with the use of a resonant optical cavity called a Fabry-Pérot interferometer, a kind of fipple flute for light.  It was this combination that permitted emission of the intense, coherent, focused beam of light that would revolutionize communications, medicine, entertainment and almost every other aspect of our lives.

Here is the problem:  Mr. Gould did not file for a patent until 1959.  Meanwhile,  Bell Labs scientists, Charles Townes and Arthur Schawlow, did apply for a patent on their similar but independently conceived discovery of how to make a laser - made three months after Mr. Gould's notebook entry. When Gould eventually did file in 1959, it took until 1977 to establish priority and gain the highly profitable royalties to which he was entitled. 

The story has many twists and turns, including a federal security order preventing Mr. Gould from even working on his invention because of his supposed leftist political leanings.  Meanwhile, the well connected scientists, Townes and Schawlow, received a Nobel Prize for inventing the laser and a similar device for microwaves, called a “maser.”  What turned the case in Mr. Gould’s favor was that he had written a complete description of how to make his invention in his notebook on that sleepless Saturday night, whereas the documentation for the laser provided by Townes and Schawlow did not include enabling instructions for building a laser.

Eventually, Gould was awarded U.S. Patents 4,053,845 and 4,704,583 and 46 other patents for his inventions – because he kept a good notebook.

Patent questions?  We can help.  See our website at http://www.patent-practice.com for more information.

Mr. Frost's Bug Zapper

On this day in history, November 8, 1910, Mr. William H. Frost of Spokane, Washington was issued U.S. Patent No. 974,785 for his invention of an "electric insect destroyer." As shown, the invention had a number of  parallel electrically energized wires of different polarity, set up so that a flying insect passing between the wires would cause a spark to  jump the wires and zap the insect. Shown at left are wires and tensioners to keep the parallel segments taut. Also shown on the interior of the array of wires is a light bulb to attract the insects.  The charge on the wires was supplied using an induction coil and a battery. The patent specification described a flat frame and a cylindrical arrangement.