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The USPTO is incompetent | 265 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
The USPTO is incompetent
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 12 2013 @ 05:35 PM EDT
Wouldn't it be more correct to say that most inventions are not patented.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

What about the measurements?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 12 2013 @ 06:17 PM EDT
I am inventor on two fairly reasonable issued patents, about 10 years apart.
Did they make money?

One was for a sophisticated device that was never marketed effectively and
therefore never sold to anyone except grant folks at DARPA under SBIR. The
number is 5,106,192. No money every changed hands under the patent license, but
the grant money kept me gainfully employed for two years or so. The patent with
the previous number arose because we tried to sell our invention to those folks,
and they patented their way around us, preserving their right to use the
technique. They filed a week after their visit with us. That had value to them
at the time.

The second issued a few years ago for a trick with power electronics, a magnet
control. Again, noone has ever paid a dime for a license, or been sued.
However, the company I work for has been selling copies of the product
profitably, and paying me to work on it and other things ever since. Given that
"most" patented inventions never make money (folkore), I think that's
a decent level of payback for the invention. But I'll bet you can't figure that
out from reading the patent itself, and I've never been paid direct royalties
for it (work for hire) and I don't think it's ever been licensed.

So be very careful of the limitations of your data.

(Christenson)


[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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