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  • A USPTO.gov account is now required to pay patent maintenance fees

    I’ve previously discussed patent maintenance fees in another blog post. Some of my clients choose to pay maintenance fees on their own. After all, it’s not difficult; all one needs to do is know their patent number and navigate the USPTO website to the Maintenance Fees Storefront.

    Starting now, however, it’s slightly more burdensome to pay patent maintenance fees. The USPTO announced that a USPTO.gov account is required to pay these fees, which was not previously the case. While it is fairly simple to create a USPTO.gov account, it’s just one more step that must be done to keep a patent alive.

    That being said, a good number of my clients have hired me to pay their patent maintenance fees (even before the new requirement) because they want to make sure it gets done correctly, which I am happy to do.

  • Featured Idaho Patent: Apparatus and method for electrosurgical suction with suction band and replaceable tips

    U.S. Patent Number 9,763,729 – Apparatus and method for electrosurgical suction with suction band and replaceable tips

    Every Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office publishes newly granted patents. This blog post is part of a weekly series in which I pick an interesting new patent that has Idaho connections and briefly describe it.

    Inventors: Noah Mark Minskoff (Palo Alto, CA), Nathan Andrew Terry (Lowman, ID)

    Apparently “surgical smoke” is a danger to surgeons and operating room staff. But where does it come from? This week’s featured patent tells us that the “true workhorse” of the surgeon is not the boring old scapel, but the electrocautery device.

    Electrocautery devices present several advantages over the older technology, but also bring about at least one disadvantage: the smoke plume that emanates at the surgical site may contain volatile organic compounds that could pose a health hazard to the surgeon and the OR staff. The patent does not mention whether the patient would be in danger as well (but maybe the assumption is that since the patient is the one producing these harmful compounds, it is already too late for that individual).

    The device itself is essentially a wand with the electrocautery electrode and one or more smoke intake ports.

    Link:

  • Most Valuable Trademarks 2013

    Consultancy firm Interbrand released its Best Global Brands 2013 list yesterday, announcing that Apple is the most valuable brand in the world. Tech companies make up four of the top five spots on the list. For the first time in the list’s 14-year history, Coca-Cola was not listed at the top, falling instead to third after Apple and Google.

    All members of the top 100 list have at least this in common: careful and protective cultivation of their brand names and logos–and a good understanding of how trademark laws help them to do so.

  • PDFs of Patents Now Provided by the Patent Office

    Has the United States Patent and Trademark Office joined the 21st Century? The online USPTO patent database now allows users to download a pdf file of an entire patent (or patent application). Previously, we had two options to view patents:

    1. download an image of a single page of the patent or
    2. go to a third-party website to download a pdf of the patent

    One can now download a full-patent pdf by following these steps:

    1. browse to a patent or published patent application in the USPTO database
    2. click the “Images” button
    3. click the “Full Pages” button

    At that point, your browser will probably open the pdf of the patent/application within your browser window. Patent searching just got a little easier!

  • Toyota was Issued the Most U.S. Patents Among Auto Manufacturers in 2012

    According to this article in USA Today, Toyota received a hefty 1,491 U.S. patents in 2012, the most of any automaker and an increase of 30% from the previous year. The number of patents granted was reported by the Intellectual Property Owners Association.

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office puts out its own report of Patenting by Organizations each year. The USPTO report indicates that TOYOTA JIDOSHA K.K. was 18th on the list of all patentees in 2012, at 1,173 patents granted (the discrepancy is probably due to some patents being assigned to Toyota’s subsidiaries, which would not be counted by the USPTO).

    Idaho’s MICRON TECHNOLOGY, INC. was 32nd on the list, receiving 913 patents last year.

  • Micro-Entity Status Loophole

    Several months ago, I blogged about reduced micro-entity fees, which will soon be available for qualifying patent applicants. As discussed in this blog post, the micro-entity provisions may have a loophole to let anybody qualify for the 75% fee reduction, just by providing a license to a qualifying institution of higher education. According to that blog post, proposed USPTO rules may tighten the loophole, but it appears that the loophole will still be available for small entities.

  • Featured Idaho Patent: Differential action railroad car axle assembly

    U.S. Patent Number 8,246,096 – Differential action railroad car axle assembly

    Every Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office publishes newly granted patents. This blog post is part of a weekly series in which I pick an interesting new patent that has Idaho connections and briefly describe it.

    Inventors: Thomas W. Blasingame (Boise, ID), Robert E. Hord (Richmond, VA)

    According to this week’s featured patent, railroad axles are usually one piece and therefore the wheels are fixed to each other in rotation. This arrangement causes problems when the railcar goes around a corner, because the outside wheel wants to turn faster. The traditional fix for this problem is a tapered wheel that is commonly seen on railcars. However, this solution is not effective “enough to fully accommodate the adverse action of the rigid mounting,” and so the track gets worn down.

    Another seemingly-obvious solution, separately-rotating wheels (such as by the use of mechanical differentials), is problematic because electrical continuity must be maintained between the two rails for signaling systems. Even metallic bearings in a mechanical differential degrade electrical signals.

    The device in the featured patent allows electrical continuity between the two wheels across an axle while providing independent rotation of the wheels with respect to each other. Another advantage of this device is that it has low maintenance needs (no more than conventional railroad wheels).

    Link:

  • Will Trademark Fees Be Lower in the Future?

    The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has published an invitation for comments regarding the possibility of lower trademark application fees. According to the notice published in the Federal Register, the lower fees would be only for applications filed electronically. The purpose of the lower fees is to incentivize applicants to use the electronic filing system (which reduces the USPTO’s costs relative to paper applications).

    The notice poses questions about what fee levels would be fair and appropriate.

    If you want to submit a comment regarding the possibility of lower fees, send it to TMFRNotices@uspto.gov or this mailing address:

    Commissioner for Trademarks
    attention Cynthia C. Lynch
    P.O. Box 1451,
    Alexandria, VA 22313-1451

    After the USPTO considers submitted comments, they plan to use the procedures set forth in the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act regarding fee-setting. It appears that the USPTO will raise the fees for paper application by a substantial measure, while it may lower fees for electronically-filed applications.

    Link:

  • Featured Idaho Patent: Portable apparatus for cleaning air filters

    U.S. Patent Number 8,236,076 – Portable apparatus for cleaning air filters

    Every Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office publishes newly granted patents. This blog post is part of a weekly series in which I pick an interesting new patent that has Idaho connections and briefly describe it.

    Inventor: Dennis Grieve (Tendoy, ID)

    This week’s featured patent discloses a device for cleaning air filters on vehicles used in off-road and other environments that quickly saturate the air filter with particulate matter. Unlike passenger vehicles, which slowly accumulate dirt in their air filters, heavy equipment is sometimes operated in conditions that result in clogged air filters relatively quickly.

    This invention does its magic by using rotating nozzles that aim compressed air at the internal surface of the air filter. The compressed air makes the nozzles spin, similar to a dishwasher’s spray arms.

    Link:

  • Featured Idaho Patent: Armor systems including coated core materials

    U.S. Patent Number 8,231,963 – Armor systems including coated core materials

    Every Tuesday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office publishes newly granted patents. This blog post is part of a weekly series in which I pick an interesting new patent that has Idaho connections and briefly describe it.

    Inventors: Henry S. Chu (Idaho Falls, ID), Thomas M. Lillo (Idaho Falls, ID), Kevin M. McHugh (Idaho Falls, ID)

    Assignee: Battelle Energy Alliance, LLC (Idaho Falls, ID)

    This week’s featured patent is an armor system that could be used for aircraft, armored vehicles, and body armor. The invention includes a multi-layer design, with a core material that is coated with a second material. The coating material is used to absorb some of the energy of projectiles hitting the armor.

    As described in the patent, the coating layer is sprayed on the core material. In one example, the coating is about 3 mm thick. One advantage of spraying the second layer is that complex armor shapes can be created just as easily as flat armor plates.

    Link: