<VV> Tinkering

jvhroberts at aol.com jvhroberts at aol.com
Tue Mar 2 08:09:42 EST 2010


 Those 'bar napkins', which I had a bunch myself, were important as they establish the dates, which is EXTREMELY important here in the US, where patent law says it's first to invent who gets the patent rights. Other countries it's first to file, which we will eventually adopt, as it takes bogus 'bar napkins' out of the equation! 

That being said, going from bar napkin to a WORKING invention (and, sadly, I have several that are of questionable value, in order to cover what the competition might be doing. On that, you can blame the lawyers!) takes a good deal of scientific method, which is at odds with what the USPTO says is patentable, which means the invention must be useful, unique, non obvious, and cannot be created (it can be developed) by simple straightforward scientific development. That last one is where the tinkering comes in, but for something to be useful, the tinkering must end and disciplined development must take over. 

And although I usually don't think much of lawyers either, good patent attorneys are worth their weight in gold, and I have enormous respect for them. And the bad ones seem to wash out of the system fairly quickly, so there is some justice in the world. 

 

John Roberts
 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: John Kepler <jekepler at amplex.net>
To: jvhroberts at aol.com; hmlinc at sbcglobal.net; VirtualVairs at corvair.org
Sent: Tue, Mar 2, 2010 8:00 am
Subject: RE: <VV> Tinkering



As a holder of many patents, the intellectual property world is a relatively
bizarre environment. It has little to do with science!

Case-In-Point:  In one of the more "significant" patents I'm associated
with, a portion of the patent app was submitted on bar napkins duly signed,
dated, and witnessed by a rather befuddled bartender.  Our Lead and I did
some damn decent theoretical work after hours in a local watering hole (too
many years working at Bingham Canyon will do that to a guy!), but he was
well acquainted with the "legal drill" the scum-sucking lawyers were going
to require.  Those stupid bar napkins were potentially worth millions of
dollars and our continued gainful employment.  So, what could easily be
facially misinterpreted as "tinkering" was backed up by a multi-million
dollar research lab, a couple decades of collective education and even more
work experience, mathematically-based testing programs with a focused and
heavily researched goal, and thousands of man-hours of hard, dirty,
dangerous work.

"Invention is 10% inspiration, 90% perspiration!"  T.A. Edison.....and
frankly, in my experience, old Tom was being fairly optimistic!



 


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