Patent - Some Famous Patents

In this article we're going to discuss some of the most famous patents in history. These are inventions that greatly changed the world we live in.

To go over all the patents that have changed the world would take a month of Sundays and then some. What follows is just a brief look at some of the greatest patents in our history.

What is considered the most valuable patent is the one issued to Alexander Graham Bell for his invention of the telephone. The patent was number 174,465 issued in 1876. Ironically, early attempts to make the telephone popular were unsuccessful. People looked at the idea as nothing more than a novelty and didn't take its communication possibilities seriously. Try telling that to all the people walking around with cell phones today.

This one may come as a bit of a surprise. Thomas Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb. What he did was improve on a fifty year old idea. In 1879, using lower current, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe, he was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light. This invention led to the creation of jobs for millions of people. Quite literally, without this invention we would all still be in the dark. Thomas Edison actually received 1093 patents during his life.

If you're into some really odd trivia you can tell people that Abe Lincoln was the only United States President to receive a patent. He did so for his manner of buoying vessels. He was issued this patent in 1849. It was patent number 6,469. When Lincoln was young he took a boatload of merchandise down the Mississippi River during a trip from New Salem to New Orleans. There was an accident when the boat slid into a dam. It took great effort to get the boat dislodged. Two years later Lincoln had a similar accident crossing the Great Lakes. These two incidents led Lincoln to come up with a solution to this problem. His invention consisted of a set of bellows attached to the hull of the ship just below the water line. When the vessel is in danger of an accident, the bellows are filled with air and act as a buoy to keep the ship afloat. Lincoln never profited from his invention but he was a very strong supporter of the patent system.

Probably the most famous patent was the one issued to Frederic Auguste Bartholdi for his design of the Statue Of Liberty. The Statue Of Liberty came to New York on June 19, 1885. It was a gift of friendship given to the United States from the people of France. It was intended to celebrate their 100 years of independence 10 years earlier.

The statue is constructed of copper sheets which are assembled on a framework of steel supports. In order to be transported to America the statue was disassembled into 350 pieces and was packed in 214 crates. It was then reassembled when it arrived. Nothing like this was ever done before and most likely will never be done again.

Your Independent guide to Patents

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

Patents and Fees: An Overview

Gaining a patent on your invention can be an expensive undertaking. From beginning to end, here are the basic fees you will need to be prepared to pay. Please realize that many others may crop up depending on how complex the prosecution becomes for your patent.

First of all, the PTO will expect you to pay a filing fee on your patent application. Fortunately though, the filing fee is not due immediately. You may choose to send in the filing fees later during the prosecution. There are different fees for different application types. Different fees for various documents. And different fees for the petitions that may need to be sent in during the prosecution.

As you can imagine, the mere filing of a patent application is a fairly expensive ordeal. To make matters worse, the PTO actually charges fees throughout the entire process. At the very least, you should expect to pay a filing fee and an issue fee (but remember, you won't need to worry about this right away - it can take well over 2 years for your patent to be allowed).

Maintenance fees must also be paid on every utility and plant patent at three intervals once it is granted. At worst, you may have to pay these fees (filing fees, issue fees and maintenance fees) plus fees for several petitions, fees for late filed IDS's, extensions of time, disclaimers, appeal-related fees and fees for a request for continuing examination among many other fee related extras. It is best to know the fees associated with gaining a patent up front so that you can budget your expenses later.

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Patenting Bioresearch And Drug Development In the Wake of The U.

Andres F QuintanaThe U.S. Supreme Court recently issued a landmark patent decision giving drug companies more leeway to develop new medicines, ruling that compounds patented by rivals do not bar them from starting research on new competing medications. The unanimous ruling in Merck KGaA v. Integra Lifesciences I, Ltd., set aside a lower-court ruling for patent holder Integra LifeSciences Holdings Corp. Integra had sued Germanys Merck KGaA for patent infringement for using several of Integras RGD peptide patents in identifying promising new tumor inhibiting drugs. The peptides are biological compounds containing two or more amino acids and form the constituent parts of proteins. Integra had offered Merck licenses on the patents, but Merck declined. At trial, Merck KGaA argued that its use of the patents was protected by 35 U.S.C. 271(e)(1), the so-called safe harbor provision of the patent statute, which protects the use of generic patents in work that is reasonably related to the development and submission of data to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The primary purpose of the law was to bring generic drugs to market sooner. If competitors were permitted to use the patented drugs for research and clinical trials, they could have generic versions readied when the patent expired. The law gives patent holders seventeen years of protection, and the delay for research could, and often does, add years to that time. Following a jury trial, the district court ruled that Merck KGaA infringed on Integras patents and that the safe harbor provision did not immunize Merck KGaA against liability.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the chief patent appellate court, affirmed last year, construing the safe harbor provision narrowly to only include clinical trials leading to FDA drug approval. In recent years, the Federal Circuit has reasoned that Congress intended only to promote the growth of generic drugs when it passed the exemption in 1984. According to the Federal Circuit, to qualify for the exemption, the otherwise infringing activity must directly produce information for submission to the FDAs safety and effectiveness approval processes. In this case, Merck KGaA was not performing clinical tests to supply information to the FDA, but only general biomedical research to identify new pharmaceutical compounds. Therefore, the research being performed by Merck KGaA was not solely for uses reasonably related to clinical testing for the FDA.
The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed with the Federal Circuit. The Court held that the FDA exemption for research is much broader, and drug companies should have more latitude to investigate innovative drugs, not just generics, so long as the research is reasonably related to the process of developing information for future drug submission. According to the Court, there is no room in the statute for excluding certain information from the exemption on the basis of the phase of research in which it is developed or the particular submission in which it could be included. The provision is now understood to permit most uses of patent-protected inventions related to the generation and submission of any data for FDA approval.
The Supreme Courts ruling constitutes a major victory for drug companies, since they can now begin drug discovery experiments and research faster, potentially saving millions of dollars in licensing costs associated with startup research. Practically, the ruling should also promote drug discovery research sometimes caused by late patent expiration dates or complex and multi-faceted licensing negotiations. Had the Supreme Court found for Integra instead, however, many pharmaceutical companies would have been forced to either suspend preclinical research programs or relocate relevant departments to countries with historically looser patent protections. Thus, the ruling should further encourage more drug development here in the United States rather than outsourcing it to foreign countries.


Andres F. Quintana is a partner in the intellectual property and litigation department of Beverly Hills, California-based Ervin, Cohen & Jessup LLP. He may be reached at aquintana@ecjlaw.com

CHINESE TRADEMARK REGISTRATION - AN ESSENTIAL PRIMER

Though the United States media have published a number of stories deriding China's intellectual property protection, those articles nearly always neglect to mention that in most instances involving trademarks, the fault lies with the foreign company, not with Chinese enforcement. The reality is that many foreign companies fail to register their trademarks in China and thus have no real right to complain about any "infringement" there. To expect protection, foreign companies must register their trademarks in China and the prudent company does this before going in. There are actually a number of people in China who make a living by usurping foreign trademarks and then selling a license to that trademark to the original license holder. Once one comes to grip with the fact that China, like most of the rest of the world, is a "first to file" country, one can understand how easy this usurpation is, and also how easy it is to prevent it. The fact that you are manufacturing your product in China just for export does not in any way minimize the need for you to protect your trademark. Once someone registers "your" trademark in China, they have the power to stop your goods at the border and prevent them from leaving China. The key to protecting a trademark in China is actually very simple: register it in China. China's trademark requirements are actually quite similar to those in most other countries. The trademark must not conflict with an existing Chinese trademark and it must be distinctive. China allows for registration of all marks for goods, services, collective marks and certification marks. China's Trademark Office maintains a centralized database of all registered and applied-for trademarks. Trademark applications that pass a preliminary screening are published by the Trademark Office and subject to a three month period for objection. If there are no objections within this three month period, or if the Chinese Trademark Office rejects the objections as frivolous, the trademark is registered. If the Chinese Trademark Office supports an objection, it will deny the application. Denied applications may be appealed to the State Administration of Industry and Commerce Trademark Review & Approval Board and then to the People's Court. Based on our experience, objections to trademarks are rare. A Chinese trademark gives foreign companies a surprising amount of protection in China. If a foreign company learns that its trademark is being infringed in China, it has a number of actions available to it. We usually advise our clients to pursue a multi-pronged approach to protect an infringed upon trademark and to pursue the infringer. The foreign trademark owner should usually file a lawsuit against the infringer, seeking damages and an injunction stopping the infringer from continuing to sell the infringing goods. The Chinese courts in the more commercialized regions are actually quite willing to enforce China's trademark laws, even for foreign companies. Trademark infringement is a crime in China. For serious cases of infringement, a complaint to the office of the public prosecutor can often result in a criminal prosecution against the infringer. The Chinese police will close the offending operation and seize the counterfeit goods. The courts are authorized to impose both fines and imprisonment. Finally, if the counterfeit goods are destined for export, a notice to the Chinese customs authorities will prevent export of the counterfeit goods. Steve Dickinson is an attorney with the international law firm of Harris &Moure (http://www.harrismoure.com). Steve is based in China, where he focuses on assisting small and medium sized businesses. Steve is fluent in Mandarin Chinese and has been working on China matters for more than twenty years. He can be reached at firm@harrismoure.com.