Patents ? American Greatness

We all know what a patent is in general, but how much do you really know about patents and how they have shaped America? Our advances in technology here in America have surpassed that of all other countries combined. Many do not like to hear that, but it is a fact, and it has more to do with how America moved ahead of other countries economically than any other factor and still does today.

In this article, I will cover many of the advances made by American Inventors throughout our relatively short history compared to other countries.

Not all inventions that helped make America great were originated in America, but even those that were not invented and patented here, were put to better use here, like a way to produce steel in large quantities for instance. Originally patented by a British inventor named Henry Bessemer. He invented the Bessemer Converter or the Bessemer Process.

He obtained his patent in 1855, even though the process was known in China in the third century. According to wikipedia.com, ? The key principle is removal of impurities from the iron by oxidation through air being blown through the molten iron. The oxidation also raises the temperature of the iron mass and keeps it molten.?

However, ingenious Americans like Andrew Carnegie put it to use and built everything from tin cans to skyscrapers to railroads and ships. Many American inventions were patented because of the ability to process steel faster.

Many people credit Benjamin Franklin for the discovery of electricity. While that is true, electrification is not quite the same thing. People like Thomas Edison had introduced direct-current systems, what we know as DC. Nikola Tesla worked toward using AC, or alternating current.

Tesla was Slavic, but a citizen of the US when he did all of his important work on electricity. At the turn of the century, Tesla was already working in fields like robotics and ballistics. George Westinghouse was a friend of Tesla?s and a major competitor to Thomas Edison. George Westinghouse put electricity to use in more practical ways than the inventors.

Westinghouse also invented things and held many patents of his own. People associate him with appliances, but he held patents that had to do with railroads as well. He held a patent on a system to put railroad cars back on the tracks after they had been derailed. He even held the patent for inventing the first air-brakes.

Electricity and Steel Processing are just two of the great scientific discoveries that made this country great. I only bring those scientific discoveries into this article to show you something about patents. Many people know about the significant scientific discoveries like nuclear power, the automobile, the airplane, electronics, radio and television, agriculture, computers, the telephone, air conditioning, refrigeration, spacecraft, the Internet, and so much more, most of which was either invented in America or put to the best use here in America.

But those significant scientific discoveries make up only a small percentage of all the patents that are applied for and granted. Most patents stem from one or more of the great scientific discoveries, but the patents are granted for the unique use of or combinations of the great discoveries.

The genius and inventiveness of the American citizen over all others can be attributed to the fact we are a free society. Free speech also means freedom of thought. Freedom of though leads to great knowledge and discovery.

While some inventions or great scientific discoveries can be attributed to people of foreign countries, nowhere are those discoveries and inventions put to better use throughout history than in the United States.

For each major scientific discovery, thousands of patents are filed that put it into practical use. Today, patents are still applied for at an extremely fast rate. America has not stopped inventing and patenting their ideas. As long as the American culture continues to foster this innovation, America will stay far ahead in all technological fields, while countries that suppress the freedoms of their citizens will lag far behind.

I hope this article, while we only touched on a few inventions and discoveries, gives you some insight into why America stays far ahead of the rest of the world through technology. Search through the US Patent Office Website and you will discover just how many inventions are patented every day.

Chuck Crawford is an established webmaster interested in various topical research. If you would like more info on Patents, please visit his website at http://patents.thegiftedone.com This article may be reprinted freely as long as all links remain active. Affiliate Website Design Articles.PN Article Science

Patent - Business Method Patents - Part II

In this second article on business method patents we're going to continue our discussion on what happens when two companies are battling it out for the same patent.

There are two ways that an Internet patent can be used. The first way is to use it offensively against a major competitor to help eat into their market share. The second way is to use it defensively against a major competitor who is threatening to sue based on one of their patents. Case studies show that most companies are less likely to go to court when the opposing company can show that it has a patent. Usually these companies agree to a truce by cross licensing each other's patents.

Here is an example of this.

Company A and Company B both sell tickets online. This includes services for exchanging unwanted tickets and also earning rewards for being a frequent purchaser. Company A happens to hold a patent on a method of exchanging tickets. Company B has a patent on a way of exchanging rewards points. Even though each company believes that the other company is infringing on their patent neither one goes to court over it. Instead they decide to cross license their patents so that each company can perform both services, exchanging tickets and rewards points.

So how is it determined who gets a patent? What happens when business A applies for a patent but business B can show that it was using the method for a year prior to filing? Business B can either stop the patent from going through right then and there or it can wait and invalidate the patent at a later time. The key to this whole procedure is that the use of business B's method MUST have been public knowledge prior to business A filing for a patent. If business B used the patent confidentially then business A will be granted the patent even though business B used the method first. However, in a 1999 amendment to this law, even though business A gets the patent, business B can still use the method without any penalty.

An example of this is as follows. Business A has been using a certain method of accounting for many years but never disclosed it to the general public. Company B, over the course of time and totally unaware that business A has already created this method, develops the method themselves and files for a patent. When company B finds out that company A has been using this accounting method they file a lawsuit against company A. Company B is granted their patent but company A is allowed to continue its use of the method without any penalty of law.

Just as a note. If company A had been using the method publicly before company B filed for the patent, the patent issued to company B would have been invalidated or possibly would have never been granted at all.

In the next article in this series we're going to discuss the legal requirements for getting a business method patent.

Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Patents

Checking Credentials Before Hiring Anyone to Help You Patent Your Invention

Many businesses make more than a decent living helping inventors just like you make money from their inventions. From filing a patent to licensing and marketing your invention, someone is around every corner offering assistance.

Unfortunately, not all of this help is the kind you want. There are companies out there who make a living off exploiting inventors. It's important not to get caught up in any of these scams. What you need is a professional who has experience and is licensed to help you patent your invention. You really need either a patent attorney or a patent agent.

Both patent agents and attorneys are registered to practice before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. No one else is. Please take note of that. No one else may legally help you fill out the paperwork associated with filing for your patent. And you definitely don't want anyone else to help you for this aspect of your invention journey.

Remember, you want someone registered by the USPTO to help you file your patent. Don't even think about speaking to someone else, even if they claim they will outsource the writing of your application to a patent attorney or agent. The problem is, you need to be in direct communication with the individual helping you to file your patent. Don't let anyone be your middleman. Gaining a patent is not an assembly line process. Your invention has completely different features than anything else out there. So you need to be able to directly communicate the novel features of your invention with the attorney or agent.

While you can work over the phone, it usually makes the most sense to meet face to face with the attorney or agent you choose. Therefore, it is best to find one not too far from where you are located. Although it can be done, a long distance relationship will probably only strain the process.

The best way to select a patent practitioner (patent agent or patent attorney) near you is through word of mouth. You may want to join a local inventors club. You can also search through the USPTO's list of registered patent practitioners or even just use their database to check your potential patent practitioner's credentials.

An individual listed on the USPTO's site will be registered to practice patent law. They must also meet the ethical requirements and can be disbarred for complaints. Please check that the patent practitioner you are considering is listed on this site before using them.

Please visit Patent Law Portal to find a patent attorney or agent near you and begin the process toward protecting your invention.

The Topic of Patentability

For an object or idea to be patentable, it must fit into one of the following four categories; process, manufacture, machine or composition of matter. The subject matter must also be original, an unmodified, previously existing invention is never patentable. There must be a significant improvement over previous inventions for the new one to qualify. If two previous inventions are combined together, the combination must yield new and unexpected results for the invention to be considered patentable.

In addition, an invention must be useful and must actually work in order for it to be patentable. A useful invention is one in which the object already has a utility without anyone having to pursue further research to identify or reasonably confirm the utility. So, if you've invented a nifty little widget or doodad, but haven't got a clue as to what it could be used for, the PTO isn't going to be impressed and isn't likely to grant your patent.

On the bright side, if an invention does not accomplish all of its intended functions or it only has partial success, it may still be patentable. In the case of newly developed drugs, the claimed invention only needs to treat a single symptom of an incurable disease for it to have usefulness. The Patent Office isn't as strict on drugs and treatments (that's where the Food and Drug Administration come in).

The PTO has established that laws or forces of nature are not deemed patentable. Examples of these include, but are not limited to, the law of gravity or E=mc2. Computer related inventions may or may not be patentable. Computer programs that have a function when used with a computer are definitely patentable subject matter. Merely recording information (like music, literary works or data) on a computer-readable medium will not result in a patentable idea.

Lisa Parmley - Registered Patent Agent Review free articles on inventing and patenting: Patent Your Inventions

Inventor Help: Go Hire A Great Patent Lawyer

Inventors should review hiring a top tier patent attorney, versus filing on their own or even worse doing nothing to protect their most important asset.

Inventors should review hiring a top tier patent attorney, versus filing on their own or even worse doing nothing to protect their most important asset.

A patent is the property right given by the U.S Patent and Trademark Office to an inventor. It gives the inventor an exclusive right over the invention preventing others from making, using or selling the invention stated in the patent deed. The main purpose behind issuing of patents is to enable the inventor in recovering developmental costs and help in facing the competition.

The patent is a way to extend legal protection to the inventions ranging from communications to technology. However, the process to get patents is long and tiresome and it is where the need of a Patent Lawyer is felt. The process to get patent is not simple. You need to argue your case as to why your invention is worth any patent and how the invention is different from other products already in the market. Patent applications seldom get accepted in the first instance. The role of the patent lawyer is to redo the application and submit it again with new information so that it is accepted.

The patent lawyer makes an inquiry about the invention or idea and then conducts a search whether a patent has already been issued for a product or service similar in characteristics. It is only after a complete and thorough inquiry that the patent lawyer advocates the case for the issuing of a patent. However, the inventor can himself search for the validity of a patent by going through the Patent and Trademark Office's Web site at www.uspto.gov. It generally takes three years for the patent application to clear because of huge stack of applications in the Patents Office.

How do I register for a patent?

Filing for a patent application electronically, by using EFS, the USPTO's electronic filing system for patent applications saves a lot of time. The various types of patent applications are:

- Utility Patent Application
- Design Patent Application
- Plant Patent Application

The patent lawyer makes the complicated and tiresome process of getting a patent simple and trouble-free.

For additional information and tips for inventors, please review:
http://www.hjventures.com/patent/patent-inventions.html

Howard Schwartz is a partner in several business strategy groups, including HJ Ventures International, Inc. For more information: http://www.hjventures.com

Effective Trademarks - How to Select a Good Name

Your trademark is the most important asset your business will ever own. A good trademark will distinguish you from the competition and help you stand out in a crowd. A poor trademark will entangle you in legal disputes and blunt your marketing efforts. Selecting a good trademark is as simple as following these guidelines.

First of all, avoid Trademarks that cannot be Registered. There is no point investing in a trademark that you can?t register. Registering the mark protects it from competitors, ensures your ownership rights in the mark and makes it easier to enforce your rights against copy cats. As you will read below, certain types of words are inherently poor choices as trademarks because they cannot be registered.

Avoid Purely Descriptive Words. Words which describe the nature or quality of the goods or services sold with the mark are not permitted to be registered. Hence, the mark ?Cold Beer? for use with malt beverages cannot be registered because it describes the actual product being sold. If registered, it would prevent anyone from using the terms Cold and Beer to describe a malt beverage.

Avoid Surnames. Surnames cannot be registered as trademarks. Hence the mark ?Wilson Power Boats? is a poor choice for a trademark because the word Wilson is a surname (and the rest of the mark is descriptive).

Avoid Confusing Trademarks. A trademark which is confusingly similar to a registered trademark cannot be registered. Hence, the mark ?Sun-Screen? cannot be registered if the trademark ?Sun Screen? has already been registered for a similar type of product. A search of the US Trademarks Database and/or the Canadian Trademarks Database is a good idea.

Avoid Generic Words in a Trademark. The goal is to select a trademark which is as unique and distinctive as possible; therefore, avoid generic words. Examples of generic words include ?green, superior, American, Canadian, deluxe, gold, economy, premium? and a plethora of others. If you incorporate generic words into your trademark, then you blend into the crowd, not stand out in front of it. Geographic words fall into this category.

Avoid TLA?s (Three Letter Acronyms) and Numbers. IBM, CNN and ATT are distinctive trademarks because their respective owners invested tens of millions of dollars into making the marks famous. Even a poor trademark can be made famous if you through enough money at it. But acronyms are intrinsically difficult to remember, while words, especially colorful words, are easily remembered. Hence ?ELS System Solutions? is not as memorable as ?Volcanic Silicon.? Likewise, avoid using numbers in a trademark as they tend to be less memorable. Furthermore, there are a limited number of unused acronyms available, so there is an excellent chance that your TLA will be confused with another.

Do use invented words. Invented words are words which do not exist in any language, apart from your trademark. Examples include SPANDEX, EXXON, KODAK, VIAGRA, and several other famous trademarks. Invented words are a good choice because they tend to be quite distinctive. You can create an invented word by simply combining parts of other words. For example, MICROSOFT is a combination of ?Micro computer? and ?software.?

Try animal or plant names. Animal and plant names tend to be quite memorable and, if used correctly, can convey a good image while still being distinctive. APPLE COMPUTERS, TIGER DIRECT, and Ford MUSTANG, are good examples.

Finally, make sure that the first word in your trademark is as distinctive as possible. It is often necessary to add descriptive words to the trademark in order to convey what is being sold or marketed in association with the mark. If generic words must be included, then it is vital that the first word of the mark be as distinctive as possible.

Elias Borges is a patent and trademark lawyer and a registered patent and trademark agent with the law firm of Borges & Rolle LLP in Toronto, Canada. http://www.borgesrolle.com/

Trademark Infringement Issues For Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertisers

Trademark infringements occur when companies bid on the brand names of their competitors. This results in the company's ads appearing under searches for the competitor's brand. What can you do to protect yourself from trademark infringement?

Yahoo has just announced they will no longer allow PPC advertisers to advertise or bid on trademarked terms.

Could this be a trend of things to come from the other major search players?

MSN's new adCenter (still in beta) states you are not allowed to infringe trademarks within their editorial guidelines (see policy below).

However, Google still maintains a strong stance in allowing advertisers to bid on trademarked search terms as long as the trademarked term is not used within the advertiser's ad-copy.

Numbers to Consider Next to click fraud, trademark violations are the second largest concern to Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Out of the total number of searches online, 20% are trademark searches. Meaning, company owned trademarks such as "Pontiac", account for 20% of all search traffic. While 1 in 5 searches for trademark terms may seem high, most conversions do not originate from trademarked terms. A study by comScore and Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture) found most buyers do not search by manufacturer or product name. Rather, buyers use broad search terms that do not include a manufacturer's name. Broad search terms account for 70% of total searches and 60% of total conversions.

Search Engine's Policy on PPC Trademark Bidding

Yahoo on Trademarks: "On March 1, 2006, Yahoo! Search Marketing will modify its editorial guidelines regarding the use of keywords containing trademarks. Previously, we allowed competitive advertising by allowing advertisers to bid on third-party trademarks if those advertisers offered detailed comparative information about the trademark owner's products or services in comparison to the competitive products and services that were offered or promoted on the advertiser's site.

In order to more easily deliver quality user experiences when users search on terms that are trademarks, Yahoo! Search Marketing has determined that we will no longer allow bidding on keywords containing competitor trademarks."

MSN AdCenter on Trademarks "Microsoft requires all advertisers to agree that they will not bid on keywords, or use in the text of their advertisements, any word whose use would infringe the trademark of any third party or would otherwise be unlawful or in violation of the rights of any third party".

Google Adwords on Trademarks: "Google takes allegations of trademark infringement very seriously and, as a courtesy, we're happy to investigate matters raised by trademark owners. Also, our Terms and Conditions with advertisers prohibit intellectual property infringement by advertisers and make it clear that advertisers are responsible for the keywords they choose to generate advertisements and the text that they choose to use in those advertisements."

Solution or More Problems With all Engines moving toward a TM standard, it would have many benefits to both advertisers and searchers. This standard would be good for marketers who would have to be more creative in their copy creation creating increased demand for qualified marketers which would translate into higher fees. Search Engines hosting the ads would maintain revenue levels, but online public relations firms may lose as they would not be required to police search engines for their clients with trademarks. Lastly, the mark owner would continue to be protected and user experience would not be affected.

Case Study: I'm currently working with an AdWords client in a circumstance where their competitors are bidding on their trademarked search terms. Aside from the constant policing and reporting for trademark violations used in the ads themselves, adspend to secure top positions for their ads has skyrocketed from an initial $2.00 per click to $15.00 per click. Additionally, monthly spend has increased from $1,200 to nearly $30,000.

I have to go back to my client with an estimated budget of $500,000 for the rest of this year to control the space for their own branded trademarked term. I am reluctant to do that as it doesn't make sense with the announcement from Yahoo on their new trademark policy. Given the level of aggression by the competitors and the extortionate cost now been borne by my client there is only one solution and that is to stop all advertisers from bidding on the terms. In my opinion, it is simply not right that a business owner has to spend $500,000+ to buy their own branded term that has already cost them millions of dollars to build. This is $500,000+ in revenue for Google which is being generated by a policy that is beyond elementary business terms. Yahoo and MSN have recognized the injustice of this policy and have taken steps to change it.

If we cannot treat this policy on a case by case basis, then I have no alternative than to advise my client that we cannot help them any further and their only option is to resort to legal action against Google.

Google also advises that you take the matter up with individual advertisers which in many cases are impossible with private registrations and foreign companies. You could add to your high costs dramatically to have to send cease desists to all infringers. Many will ignore you.

The classic bait and switch does not seem to apply to the Internet. Many companies are okay with their terms being bought for comparison shopping and by re-sellers. The solution here is for those companies to give permission to Google to allow their re-sellers to purchase the name. With the strength and sophistication of Google's technology how difficult can this be? I doubt it is any more cumbersome than filtering search results for China.

Your Defense Against Trademark Violations Website companies where the majority of their revenue is generated through online sales depend heavily on search engines to generate traffic to their website. In order to defend against trademark infringements you will need to conduct search audits at least once every month. You not only need to look over organic search results, but also paid search results or PPC contextual ads. You should look through the top 30 results of the search listings.

For organic search engine results you should look at both the questionable result and the site displayed in the result. When looking over the possible violator's site, don't just look over the visible content on the site; look over the code as well to uncover hidden text, image alt tags and keyword meta tags that may include your trademarked names.

Then document your findings. For search engine results and PPC results use a "screen capture" of the page displaying the mark infringement. For mark infringements that are visible on a website, save the entire page's code as a .txt file.

What about if you are you seeing an infringement in organic search results, but when you click on the page, there is no infringement? They may be using a cloaked page which includes your trademark. To check this out you will need to view the search engine's cached page on file. Make sure to save a copy of this code as well.

You will need to document your findings properly by dating the violation as well as the site owner's complete contact information. Use http://www.dnsstuff.com to get the whois information for the site. Once you have all of this documented you will need to send your findings to the appropriate search engine.

You may also want to take the legal route, in which case you should keep a record of all your documentation to present to your legal counsel.

The best way to gather evidence is to hire a third party to collect evidence against the infringer of your trademark or copyrighted material. Recently at Search Engine Strategies in New York City during February of 2006, Deborah Wilcox, Partner of Baker & Hostetler LLP who specializes in trademark and copyright areas of law said, "Use a third party to make print outs and audit the search results. If the case goes to court you will need hard evidence for the judge."

Contact the Search Engines You can also contact the search engines directly if you believe an advertiser is infringing on your trademark. The respective search engine contact information is below.

Google Google Inc. Attn: Google AdWords, Trademark Complaints 2400 Bayshore Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043

Yahoo! Search Marketing Formerly: Overture Services, Inc. Attn: Business & Legal Affairs - Trademarks 74 N. Pasadena Ave., 3rd Floor Pasadena, California 91103 Fax: 626 685-5601

Microsoft Corporation Attn: MSN Search Trademark Concerns One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 USA

Trademark Infringement Resources International Trademark Association www.inta.org American Patent & Trademark Law Center www.patentpending.com

Warren Pattison is the Director of Search for Elixir Systems, a full service search engine marketing company specializing in organic search engine optimization services, online reputation management and paid search or PPC management. For more information visit http://www.elixirsystems.com/services/online-reputation-management.php