Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's your old pal me Josh, and I
Speaker 1: am here to bring you today's s Y s K
Speaker 1: Selects episode called How Patents Work. It sounds like it
Speaker 1: will make your eyes bleed out of boredom, but do
Speaker 1: not get it wrong. It's actually one of our most
Speaker 1: interesting episodes ever. And it is seriously, sincerely, honestly everything
Speaker 1: you could ever possibly want to know about patents. And
Speaker 1: I would guess that we've never said the word patent
Speaker 1: more than we do in this episode, So enjoy it.
Speaker 1: It's from November of two thousand fourteen. Take a little
Speaker 1: time to learn about patents. Welcome to Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and and this is stuff you should know. There's Jerry too.
Speaker 1: By the way, Jerry, he's ready for January. Me, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're ready for a new year. I'm ready for this
Speaker 1: year to be done. Yeah. I think it's been kind
Speaker 1: of cool year. No, it's been fun. I'm just I'm tired.
Speaker 1: I feel i'd be much more rested in it's October.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got a little ways to go, I know,
Speaker 1: and this is my favorite month too. I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of a drag so tired, you hippie, you're gonna start
Speaker 1: saying far out next starting to it is far out,
Speaker 1: so Chuck, Yes, I'm very curious. Do you have any
Speaker 1: patents to your name? Now? Man, I'm not. I don't
Speaker 1: have an inventive mind. I don't either. My brother does,
Speaker 1: and he has had some good ideas that have later
Speaker 1: been made into inventions. Why didn't he patent him? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Man. Every every time I see a new one,
Speaker 1: I sent it to him, say hey, I remember when
Speaker 1: he had this idea twelve years ago, Scott, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? You know? Well, he's got a bunch
Speaker 1: of pinball tables, so he's doing all right. He doesn't
Speaker 1: own the patent on them though, Um no, but he could,
Speaker 1: you know why, because it's America, that's right. So it
Speaker 1: turns out, Chuck um and doing a little bit of research,
Speaker 1: that there's mention of patents and patent protection in the Constitution,
Speaker 1: not even the Bill of Rights. Freedom of speech isn't
Speaker 1: even mentioned in the constitutions in the Bill of Rights,
Speaker 1: but patent protection is in the Constitution Article one Section eight,
Speaker 1: Clause eight, which is known as the Intellectual Property Clause,
Speaker 1: and it says, quote, Congress shall have the power ellipse
Speaker 1: to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing,
Speaker 1: for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right
Speaker 1: to their respective writings and discoveries. And since this is
Speaker 1: the late eighteenth century, a lot of that stuff was
Speaker 1: just like randomly capitalized, like a sixth grader wrote it
Speaker 1: something right, And my apologies to all of you six
Speaker 1: great listeners out there who know your capitalization, like we
Speaker 1: love proper now. So um, it's in the constitution. Like,
Speaker 1: if you invent something that's new and novel and cool,
Speaker 1: we think you should have some sort of government sanctioned
Speaker 1: monopoly over that, at least for a limited amount of time.
Speaker 1: You know why Why because very early on the United
Speaker 1: States said we want to encourage uh inventiveness and forward thinking,
Speaker 1: an entrepreneurship and great ideas. They were on board pretty early.
Speaker 1: Even though it's a sort of a mess these days,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about against the end, yea, we will, yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the whole point, the whole purpose of a
Speaker 1: patent system, and apparently every it's one of the hallmarks
Speaker 1: of the m of the modern society, I guess, is
Speaker 1: to have a patent office. It says we value innovation,
Speaker 1: we value technological progress, artistic progress, um. And we're going
Speaker 1: to show a commitment to that by by basically saying
Speaker 1: you you have again, I guess the best way to
Speaker 1: put it as a monopoly on your invention for a
Speaker 1: limited amount of time. And it hearkens back. Um. Apparently
Speaker 1: the first patent was issued in fourteen forty nine in
Speaker 1: jolly old England by King Henry the sixth, who gave
Speaker 1: it to a guy who didn't even have a last name. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: sure of Utnam is not a last name. That's where
Speaker 1: you're from. Sounds like I'm Josh of Toledo. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying this medieval is not the sixteenth century. Uh No,
Speaker 1: it's not so. John of Unham got a patent from
Speaker 1: King Henry the sixth for stained glass manufacturing. Yeah, back
Speaker 1: then patents in England were it was a little bit different.
Speaker 1: It was more like, Hey, we want to protect the
Speaker 1: crown and our country and our good friends and are
Speaker 1: good good friends of the crown, and um make sure
Speaker 1: that if they have an idea that we can go
Speaker 1: after anyone else in any other country, even if it's
Speaker 1: something like stained glass that's already clearly being done in
Speaker 1: places like Italy. Right. It was basically like, you know, officially,
Speaker 1: are the only person who can make stained glass. It
Speaker 1: was a bit of a sham. Yeah, they would. They
Speaker 1: would give out patents not just on an item or
Speaker 1: an idea or an invention, but like a whole industry.
Speaker 1: So like this, somebody held the patent on the publishing
Speaker 1: industry for a while and apparently got out of hand
Speaker 1: because it was just royal prerogative left and right. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't last that long though. By the six four
Speaker 1: they started to pass statutes and laws to try and
Speaker 1: curb that abuse of power. Um, anyway they could and
Speaker 1: make it a little more like the patent system that
Speaker 1: we know and support today. Yeah, they were like, the
Speaker 1: Crown can't give out patents unless it's for new invention. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that that is very similar to what we
Speaker 1: have today. Um. So right off the bat, America's like
Speaker 1: new country. We're setting up a patent office. Um. And
Speaker 1: the first person to get a patent in the United
Speaker 1: States was one Samuel Hopkins. Hopkins is the last name
Speaker 1: not Samuel of Pittsburgh, Samuel Hopkins. Yeah, he got a
Speaker 1: patent for UM an improvement in making in the making
Speaker 1: of potash. Is that potash or potash? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I said it eight different ways in my head earlier.
Speaker 1: Well one of those is right, yes, um. And so
Speaker 1: he held the first patent. Actually, the person that reviewed
Speaker 1: his patent was a man named Thomas Jefferson. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: was big on innovation, as was Lincoln, and Lincoln is
Speaker 1: the only president to actually hold a patent. UM. He
Speaker 1: got a boat stuck one time in the river and said, hey,
Speaker 1: that'd be neat if we could find a way to
Speaker 1: not get boats stuck, right, So he devised the system
Speaker 1: to unstick boats when they were stuck on a sandbar
Speaker 1: for the river was too shallow or something. Yeah, by
Speaker 1: inflating some booie's that would just basically let you float over.
Speaker 1: And they were like, President Lincoln, that's a great idea,
Speaker 1: here's your patents. Well he was a congressman at the time,
Speaker 1: but yeah, he's the only president to hold a patent. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Jefferson handled the application process for a while
Speaker 1: before passing it off to UM. You know, other cabinet members.
Speaker 1: And then eventually they're like, you know what, we this
Speaker 1: is all out of hand. We need to establish our
Speaker 1: own patent office and did so an eighteen o two. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they grossly underestimated the number of patent applications
Speaker 1: they were going to receive. People got their invention on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the first patent um that Samuel Hopkins received, Um Jefferson examined,
Speaker 1: he signed it, he gave it to the Secretary of War,
Speaker 1: who signed it, who then pass it under the Attorney
Speaker 1: General who signed it. And then President George Washington signed it.
Speaker 1: So that wasn't a sustainable process. And then chuck, there's
Speaker 1: like tons of millions of patents. I think like five
Speaker 1: point seven million patent tons of millions in them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: five point seven is a ton um. Anyway, there was
Speaker 1: this notable one that I think is kind of hilarious.
Speaker 1: Mark Twain, beloved American humorist. He invented. Who didn't like
Speaker 1: Mark Twain, Man, there's a lot of twin haters. Well,
Speaker 1: he invented the elastic brass strap. Yeah, uh, I wonder
Speaker 1: why he he invented and improve it an adjustable and
Speaker 1: detachable straps for garments, which he suggested could use for
Speaker 1: pantaloons or vests or other garments. But basically, if you
Speaker 1: look at it, you're like, that's a brass strap. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I bet that the old soft garter benefited from that idea,
Speaker 1: I would guess so. And then one other things I wondered. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he also held two other patents, one for um a game. Hey,
Speaker 1: he invented a game to help players remember important historical dates. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't think he ever saw a dime on that one,
Speaker 1: I'm sure. And then a self pasting scrap book, which
Speaker 1: wouldn't be come huge until the nineties. Yeah. Self pasting
Speaker 1: means I don't know, it's already sticky. Yeah, like the
Speaker 1: photo albums you peel back the plastic and that that
Speaker 1: sheet underneath is sticky uses static electricity. No, it's actually
Speaker 1: sticky too, didn't it. I think it's static. It's sticky.
Speaker 1: I think it's sticky. I haven't looked at a photo
Speaker 1: of a minute. What, well, I have to I have
Speaker 1: to go to uh, I don't know, the Hallmark store
Speaker 1: and check on out soon. Let's do it. Well, we
Speaker 1: were going anyway, so so I know the new Christmas
Speaker 1: tournaments are uh so Chuck, let's talk patents, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this I had this idea because I'm a big fan
Speaker 1: of Shark Tank, the TV show, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of patent talk, and uh, I was watching it the
Speaker 1: other day and they says, well, we have the utility patent,
Speaker 1: but not the design patent. And I was like, I
Speaker 1: gotta look this stuff up and see what all that means.
Speaker 1: And um, well, we'll get to that in a second,
Speaker 1: but let's start it out and we'll probably do shows
Speaker 1: on maybe copyright and trademark at some point. Maybe they're
Speaker 1: still they're worth mentioning here though. Yeah. Copyright, those are
Speaker 1: all forms of intellectual protecting your intellectual property, and copyright
Speaker 1: is the easiest and most broad and wide reaching and
Speaker 1: longest lasting form because you can just write something and
Speaker 1: it's yours automatically in the United States at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it lasts um for your lifetime plus seventy years.
Speaker 1: Not bad, no, um, and literally once you, like Chuck,
Speaker 1: if you write a short little story, you can write.
Speaker 1: When you finish, you can write see put a circle
Speaker 1: around it, Chuck Bryant, two thousand fourteen, and you have
Speaker 1: your official copyright. That's right, Like that's it. Legally, you're
Speaker 1: you're done just because you created a work of authorship.
Speaker 1: And that's pretty great if you're a company and you've
Speaker 1: done have a copyright as a company at last um
Speaker 1: up to a hundred and twenty years, depending on whether
Speaker 1: they publish it or not. Um. Yes, but that's uh.
Speaker 1: Eventually it does run out, and then it can be
Speaker 1: shared and other people can make money off of it,
Speaker 1: like for example, old um HP Lovecraft stories. Like you
Speaker 1: or I could take a bunch of love Craft stories
Speaker 1: um and say we wrote them, type them, put them together,
Speaker 1: and publish them and sell those books. Really like a
Speaker 1: collection that you don't have to get any kind of
Speaker 1: permission for that. Nope, it's in the public domain at
Speaker 1: that pointlong to the world. That's right. Well, we read
Speaker 1: every Halloween. We have to read something from the public domain,
Speaker 1: I know, because it's really expensive to do otherwise it is.
Speaker 1: Trademarks are a little bit different. They're a lot more
Speaker 1: narrow and what they protect, and they protect designs and
Speaker 1: phrases that businesses use or maybe trade secrets like a
Speaker 1: formula for a soda are different. That's its own thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's still a trademark. Is it. Yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: it was separate from a trademark. M. I don't think so.
Speaker 1: So with a trade says it's a trademark trade secret. Well,
Speaker 1: with a trade secret, um, it's actually. Uh, it can
Speaker 1: be beneficial to keep something under wraps as a trade
Speaker 1: secret because if you have something that you patent, you're
Speaker 1: protected for twenty years in the United States, your patent
Speaker 1: is but part of the patent processes we'll talk about
Speaker 1: is to publish it. You make it every detail of
Speaker 1: it public. So then after twenty years, when your patent
Speaker 1: runs out, anybody can go and look at your patent
Speaker 1: and recreate it and not give you a cent for it.
Speaker 1: If it's a trade secret, as long as no one
Speaker 1: discovers the the say secret formula for Coke by accident
Speaker 1: or by being this American Life and rooting it out
Speaker 1: right and uh and then yes, so like Coke could
Speaker 1: sue This American Life for damages. But once it's out
Speaker 1: in the public, like, that's no longer a trade seek
Speaker 1: and other people can use it legally. Uh. The other
Speaker 1: way you can do it is to take coke and
Speaker 1: reverse engineer it and come up with the formula successfully.
Speaker 1: That way that's not protected by trade secrets. But then, uh,
Speaker 1: I think Coke diffused that well though they were kind
Speaker 1: of like great, good luck. Yeah, supposedly they keep it
Speaker 1: in a bank in a bank vault here in Atlanta, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you. Um. And then the last one is a
Speaker 1: service mark, which is like a trademark for a company
Speaker 1: that provides services rather than products. So like if you're
Speaker 1: a plumber, you might have sm next to your your logo.
Speaker 1: Those are the different types of intellectual property protection protections
Speaker 1: afforded in the United States, Chuck. But the final one,
Speaker 1: and the one we're discussing in that length is the patent,
Speaker 1: and that is a copyright for an invention, and the
Speaker 1: US patent law, uh defines that as quote any new
Speaker 1: and useful process, machine manufacturer, or composition of matter, or
Speaker 1: any new idea and useful improvement thereof end quote. And
Speaker 1: that is uh, well, we'll get into all that, but
Speaker 1: the wording there is sufficiently vague and specific, because when
Speaker 1: you're talking about inventions, it's got to be a little
Speaker 1: bit vague, Yeah, because you don't have it all worked out.
Speaker 1: Maybe no, because with the copyright, for example, what you
Speaker 1: wrote down is is protected, right, the sentence structure, the
Speaker 1: paragraphs who use the wording you used. That's protected, the
Speaker 1: thoughts that it's getting across about the little puppy who
Speaker 1: got lost and came back home and everything ended really well,
Speaker 1: like you, you're the idea of a puppy getting lost
Speaker 1: can't be copyrighted with a patent. It's the reverse, like
Speaker 1: the actual invention, like the platform shoe with the goldfish
Speaker 1: tank and the heel that you invented, right the you
Speaker 1: can't defend that actual tangible shoe, but the idea, the
Speaker 1: design of that shoe, that's what a patent protects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can't steal It gets a little tricky with
Speaker 1: things like writing or like movie ideas. You can't steal
Speaker 1: someone's idea. Um, Like, there could be two movies about
Speaker 1: lost puppies. But if you could somehow prove that you
Speaker 1: met someone in a meeting and pitched him this idea
Speaker 1: for the lost puppy, and then six months later they
Speaker 1: came out with a script for a lost puppy, you
Speaker 1: might have a case that they I don't know, man um,
Speaker 1: it happens all the time. Okay, but think about deep
Speaker 1: impact and armageddon. Let's go back to that. Well, well,
Speaker 1: now I know that's what I'm saying. You can have
Speaker 1: two movies. There their lawsuits every day filed on Hollywood
Speaker 1: over stolen intellectual ideas. But um, whether or not successful
Speaker 1: is whether or not you can make your case. You know,
Speaker 1: it depends upon each one. That's a good point. So
Speaker 1: the first thing if you want to pattent an invention
Speaker 1: is that you have to uh well, it has to
Speaker 1: be sufficiently novel, is what they say. So it can't
Speaker 1: be uh uh. I mean it can be similar to
Speaker 1: other things, but it has to be different enough to
Speaker 1: something that's already patented or been published in a publication
Speaker 1: to grant the patent. Yeah, because if this that's a
Speaker 1: really key point. If if the even if you invented
Speaker 1: something right, Um, and let's say you wrote about your
Speaker 1: platform shoe with the goldfish tank in the heel, right,
Speaker 1: if you wrote about it and don't file a patent
Speaker 1: application if it was published, yes, within a year, Um,
Speaker 1: you you can't file a patent after that. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why the first thing you need to do is file
Speaker 1: the patent. Like, no one invents something and writes all
Speaker 1: about it in the Washington Post for a year and
Speaker 1: it's just maybe I should patent it so that that's
Speaker 1: your first step. And so that's and that's that's what
Speaker 1: makes a novel. It's new. It's a different idea. And
Speaker 1: like you said, you can be taking different things that
Speaker 1: already exist but putting them together in a new way
Speaker 1: that people hadn't thought of or that wasn't what's called
Speaker 1: um obvious. So the the invention also has to be
Speaker 1: non obvious. Yeah, and that's what most inventions these days
Speaker 1: are our improvements on things that already exists. Like there
Speaker 1: are new inventions, but a lot of it. Like the
Speaker 1: great example they use in nineteen seventy seven when Jerome
Speaker 1: Lemelson invented or got patented the idea of the cam quarter.
Speaker 1: It was so absurd at the time. People were like,
Speaker 1: you hit recorded video and sound at the same time.
Speaker 1: Just that's denied. That's just silly, get out of here.
Speaker 1: And he said, actually, you know, that's kind of a
Speaker 1: good idea, and it's super easy to do because all
Speaker 1: I have to do is tape the tape recorder to
Speaker 1: this camera, which is probably what he did. And uh,
Speaker 1: he was able to get the cam quarter patented, of course.
Speaker 1: And now if you go to the patent office and
Speaker 1: do some research. There probably thousands of patents that have
Speaker 1: to do with the cam quarter. Each individual little piece
Speaker 1: that someone innovates, they can patent, like night vision on
Speaker 1: it or a light attached to it, right exactly. But
Speaker 1: you couldn't say, I'm gonna patent a cam quord this
Speaker 1: other guy's cam quorder idea, but it'll be green because
Speaker 1: that's an obvious change. Or this article gives the example
Speaker 1: of like a toaster, Like you couldn't patent a toaster
Speaker 1: that has an extra two slots for bread because anybody
Speaker 1: could think of that exactly. It's that's obvious, that's non obvious,
Speaker 1: that's just a bigger toaster. And then there's also useful
Speaker 1: um useful as kind of the last of the triumvirate
Speaker 1: for what makes a patentable item or invention, and like
Speaker 1: it has to be something that works. So like the
Speaker 1: example given in this article is like you couldn't patent
Speaker 1: random configuration of gears because it doesn't do anything, it
Speaker 1: doesn't work, it's not useful. But if those gears transported, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a new way of transporting something from
Speaker 1: one place to another more efficiently. Maybe than you could patentable,
Speaker 1: patentable um. And then in the same vein, something that
Speaker 1: apparently the patent office interprets something that can be used
Speaker 1: strictly for immoral purposes, that they consider that non useful
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, the patent office
Speaker 1: is supposed to be doing this for the benefit of society.
Speaker 1: So I guess they feel that they also can morally
Speaker 1: interpret things as well. Yeah, what is that? Like, you
Speaker 1: can't patent like a whiskey still like in your bedroom.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I know, I wouldn't. I think it'd
Speaker 1: be more harmful than that, Like like maybe, um, a
Speaker 1: doomsday laser that only works on children who haven't done
Speaker 1: anything to anybody, But the doomsday laser for bad kids
Speaker 1: is great. You see my point? Patentable That was a
Speaker 1: great example if you ask me. And then similarly, your
Speaker 1: device has to be able to be to not just work.
Speaker 1: Like yes, you could say, well, this random configuration of
Speaker 1: gears will work. Why can't I patent it because it's
Speaker 1: not useful. In the same vein, you can't patent uh,
Speaker 1: like a time machine. Again, the example they give this
Speaker 1: this article is lousy with great examples. Yeah, like we
Speaker 1: We tried, actually to get our way Back Machine patented,
Speaker 1: and they said, guys, that's real cute. They're like, that's
Speaker 1: basically just sound design. Thanks for wasting your time. We
Speaker 1: could probably trademark it, though, although I'm sure the good
Speaker 1: people who made Rocky and bowl Winkle would sewer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: r see us, Yeah, see ourselves. The patent in the
Speaker 1: United States. And I apologize that this is not patents
Speaker 1: all around the world, but we don't have like eighty
Speaker 1: hours because we search each country. Again, any any modern
Speaker 1: developed country typically has a patent system. Yeah, and good advice.
Speaker 1: If you have something that you think could be used internationally,
Speaker 1: you need to get patents in all the countries you
Speaker 1: fear might rip it off, right, because you're your patent
Speaker 1: that you've received in the United States protects you in
Speaker 1: the United States, not Canada, not Japan, not Mexico, not China,
Speaker 1: not anywhere for twenty years, right these days, that's all
Speaker 1: long your patent will last. That's right, Chuck. Um. It
Speaker 1: used to be seventeen and I can't remember when they
Speaker 1: changed it, but it wasn't too terribly long ago, within
Speaker 1: the last couple of decades, I think. Yeah, And actually, um, well,
Speaker 1: we'll go over the types of the patent real quick too,
Speaker 1: because one of those, the design patent is only for
Speaker 1: fourteen years unless that's changed design patent. You'll hear that
Speaker 1: on Shark Tank all the time. Uh. That is something
Speaker 1: like if you designed a new chair, like an ikea chair,
Speaker 1: that would be design patented. You can't go and rip
Speaker 1: off that chair. Oh, but the the idea of a
Speaker 1: chair itself isn't patentable. It's just this configuration of the
Speaker 1: chair concept, right. Or Steve Madden will design a shoe
Speaker 1: and Steve Madden can put a design patent on that
Speaker 1: shoe even though it's a shoe. You can even patent
Speaker 1: the sole of a shoe if it's some innovative new
Speaker 1: tread tread or for like a tire that channels water
Speaker 1: away or something like that. Exactly. Um, I don't think
Speaker 1: those are design patents though. I think that would be
Speaker 1: a utility patent. But design patents are enforced for fourteen years.
Speaker 1: Utility patent um that is, there are five categories there.
Speaker 1: It can be a process, a machine, a manufacturer, a
Speaker 1: composition of matter, or an improvement on an existing idea,
Speaker 1: and it might fall into a certain category, like more
Speaker 1: than one, but it'll only be patented for one of
Speaker 1: those categories. But it's covered and that lasts for twenty years.
Speaker 1: So basically you're like the coffee maker that also makes
Speaker 1: an egg and toast at the same time. That would
Speaker 1: have gotten a utility pattern, right, uh yeah, does that exist? Yeah? Nice?
Speaker 1: Emily said. The best egg she ever had was it
Speaker 1: a cafe in Utah where they um cook them using
Speaker 1: a like what she used to heat the milk like
Speaker 1: that sprays out the steam. They were steam cooked. Weird. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like to make an espresso, they will put the egg
Speaker 1: like as if you would make an espresso and cook
Speaker 1: the eggs with that steam. I've never heard of that.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that either. Um. And then there's the
Speaker 1: super Weird Plant patent, and that is granted for any
Speaker 1: a sexually or sexually reproducible plant or flour that is
Speaker 1: novel and not obvious. Yeah, that's that's kind of a
Speaker 1: big one because there was and in Australia it's this
Speaker 1: is the way it is. But in the US it
Speaker 1: was up in the air for a little bit that
Speaker 1: people were worried that like naturally occurring genetic sequences could
Speaker 1: be patented, so we're basically some company could be like, hey,
Speaker 1: we now own your genes and you can't do anything
Speaker 1: with them, even to save your own life unless you
Speaker 1: pay us. In in Australia, they're one of their federal
Speaker 1: courts said yeah, like, we're totally down with that, which
Speaker 1: is crazy. In the United States, I think in two
Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen, the Supreme Court said, yeah, we're not
Speaker 1: doing that. You you can patent um if you can
Speaker 1: figure out how to manipulate jens to make them do
Speaker 1: something that doesn't naturally occur, knock yourself out, totally patent that,
Speaker 1: like for example, mont Satto's seeds that um that prevent
Speaker 1: themselves from receding or creating more seeds. Yeah, or some
Speaker 1: new strain of tree that's hardy against what some kind
Speaker 1: of insect. You can patent that, right, But you can't
Speaker 1: just go out and patent an oak tree or a
Speaker 1: human gene. No, you can in Australia, which should not
Speaker 1: be allowed to do. But in the US you can't
Speaker 1: do that. And that was a big load off off.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people's minds, including mine. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: that's good. I'm glad you can sleep then I am
Speaker 1: feeling great. Plant patents are good for twenty years as well.
Speaker 1: So I don't know why I design pats are only fourteen,
Speaker 1: but you know, maybe they just want to encourage more
Speaker 1: to Nobody values design like they should. That's the problem. Uh.
Speaker 1: As far as we mentioned Jerome Lemelson, and as far
Speaker 1: as inventors go, he ranks second to Thomas Edison a
Speaker 1: number of patents in US history, not necessarily a number
Speaker 1: of inventions, though a lot of people would point out, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a pretty controversial guy. Some people see him as
Speaker 1: a philanthropic genius. I'm talking about Edison, I was talking
Speaker 1: about Lemelson. Yeah he is. He's controversial himself too, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he um has accused a lot of people of
Speaker 1: creating what's called submarine patents, which are it's basically a
Speaker 1: patent that you sit on even and knowing that there's
Speaker 1: something just like that being developed, and you don't let
Speaker 1: anyone know, and you just hope it doesn't get their attention,
Speaker 1: and then later on when it's huge, you come out
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you owe me a ton of money
Speaker 1: because I have this seventeen year old patent. Yeah. Now
Speaker 1: this this Lemilson is basically what you're talking about is
Speaker 1: a form of patent trolling. That's right, and that's he
Speaker 1: does definitely stand accused of that, or we should say
Speaker 1: his foundation stands accused of that. Um But Samuel Lemonson
Speaker 1: had was um in country vertibally a genius inventor who
Speaker 1: definitely did come up with a lot of really great ideas,
Speaker 1: things like the cam quarter, things like bar code scanning,
Speaker 1: like just like basically the modern world, a lot of
Speaker 1: it came out of Lemilson's head, Jerry Lemilson's head. Right,
Speaker 1: But you are right. His foundation has racked up like
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in licensing fees and court awards from
Speaker 1: these kind of these kind of lawsuits and litigations until
Speaker 1: they ran up against one where it was like I
Speaker 1: think a bar code scanning case, a couple of them
Speaker 1: got put together and then they were added onto like
Speaker 1: seven others, and the judge in the case found that
Speaker 1: basically this even though there isn't necessarily statute of limitations,
Speaker 1: a reasonable statute of limitations had run out on the
Speaker 1: time between when barcode scanners came out and the time
Speaker 1: they filed the lawsuits. And they used the term submer
Speaker 1: marine patents in this article and said time's basically run out.
Speaker 1: These things belong to the world now, and you know, sorry, lol,
Speaker 1: Wilson Foundation, you're not gonna get this money. Interesting. There
Speaker 1: was something past called TRIPS Agreement, Agreement on Trade Related
Speaker 1: Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and that was supposed to
Speaker 1: kind of curb submarine patents, but they'll still pop up
Speaker 1: every now and then. I think I think TiVo reared
Speaker 1: their head. I think I saw something about that. I
Speaker 1: know the details though, with a submarine patent saying hey,
Speaker 1: everyone with a Comcast DVR, we actually invented that whole technology.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I'm not sure how that all panned
Speaker 1: out though, I didn't get to look into it any further.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting. Well let's keep at it, but we'll
Speaker 1: start again right after these messages. Okay, So Chuck, Yeah,
Speaker 1: do you want to talk about Edison? So yeah, I
Speaker 1: said lem Jerome Lemelson was number two with five hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty seven patents held in the US, but Edison
Speaker 1: eclipses that with one thousand, ninety three patents. Uh. And
Speaker 1: he had a set up in Menlo Park, New Jersey
Speaker 1: that was just like a the idea factory basically, which
Speaker 1: ironically is unrelated to the Menlo Park US Patent and
Speaker 1: Trade Office out in California. Oh really, Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: just coincidentally named from what I understand. Interesting, Uh, I
Speaker 1: never do that connection. Um. He when he set up
Speaker 1: the Menlo Park, he hired a bunch of like really
Speaker 1: bright people and said, let's come up with one small
Speaker 1: invention every ten days, one major invention every six months,
Speaker 1: and I'll put my name on all of them exactly.
Speaker 1: And if if the your hackles are raised right now,
Speaker 1: go back and listen to our Nicola Tesla episode, which
Speaker 1: is a good one. Edison was a smart guy in
Speaker 1: many ways. He was quite a good promoter. Like the
Speaker 1: light bulb. He's frequently credited with inventing the light bulb.
Speaker 1: A lot of purests will point out, like, no, he
Speaker 1: didn't really invent the light bulb. He took a lot
Speaker 1: of other innovations that were incandescent light related and he
Speaker 1: figured out how to put them together into what we
Speaker 1: understand now is the light bulb. Well, yeah, but that's
Speaker 1: an invention. Yeah, he went and got the patent, and
Speaker 1: now everybody says Edison invented the light bulb because uh
Speaker 1: and I like that too, because you know, that's the
Speaker 1: kind of the whole point of patents is this stuff
Speaker 1: is available to the public to look up. And that
Speaker 1: was one of the original reasons they made it public,
Speaker 1: is so people could look up other people's ideas and
Speaker 1: build upon that, right. You know, that's one that's one
Speaker 1: mark in the favor of patent offices in the patent
Speaker 1: system in general, is that it's a way to disseminate
Speaker 1: scientific information and encourage growth and uh, you know, inventiveness, right,
Speaker 1: And the with the way it does that is by
Speaker 1: offering an incentive for inventors to invent, because that can
Speaker 1: be a very long, arduous, heartbreaking experience inventing. And if
Speaker 1: you're gonna do that and go to all the work
Speaker 1: of research and development and then right when you come
Speaker 1: up with it, somebody can just come along and mass
Speaker 1: produce it, then you're you're not gonna have any incentive
Speaker 1: to invent anything. You're just gonna go off and like
Speaker 1: work on a road crew or something instead, because it's
Speaker 1: probably a lot more satisfying at the end of the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can't just go to the government and say, hey,
Speaker 1: they you need to look into this guy. They stole
Speaker 1: my idea that I have patented. The government would be like,
Speaker 1: I don't care. Well, they may care, that's a little callous,
Speaker 1: but they say that's not our job. You can go
Speaker 1: and take someone to court if you want to challenge this.
Speaker 1: But there's no government agency that like patrols the patents infringements. No,
Speaker 1: it's up to the patent holder to to monitor and
Speaker 1: police their own patents, which they are big. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about the courts a little bit. Um. It's like
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, if you had held a patent and
Speaker 1: you took someone to court for infringement, the courts typically
Speaker 1: sided with the infringer. There was a I guess kind
Speaker 1: of either a thought that you are stifling innovation if
Speaker 1: you're just kind of suing people over patent infringement, you know,
Speaker 1: or else they just didn't view patents like they do today. Nowadays,
Speaker 1: it's going to the other extreme, where the court's rule
Speaker 1: in favor of the patent holders so frequently that a
Speaker 1: cottage industry of what are known as patent trolls sprang up,
Speaker 1: where you have groups of people or companies or individuals
Speaker 1: who just go around either applying for patents that are
Speaker 1: really abstract and really shouldn't have been approved, very vaguely written, right. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they're typically software related to because I think there's
Speaker 1: a sentiment that the the U. S. Patent Office it
Speaker 1: doesn't fully grasp software and the Internet and I T
Speaker 1: and that kind of stuff. Um. So you either going
Speaker 1: and file for and get a patent on something really
Speaker 1: overly broad and vague, or you buy a bunch of
Speaker 1: other people's patents and you just start for the whole
Speaker 1: purpose of going to people and saying you're infringing on
Speaker 1: these patents that I now own, give me some money.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you to court. It's a business unto itself,
Speaker 1: it is. Um. The problem is because the courts moved
Speaker 1: so far in favor of patent holders that people would
Speaker 1: sell settle out of court to avoid litigation. And so
Speaker 1: as a result, this this whole cottage industry came up.
Speaker 1: And then recently there's been some steps taken to kind
Speaker 1: of reform that a little bit. There was something called
Speaker 1: the Innovation Act. The Innovation Act past the House was
Speaker 1: sent to the Senate, it was in the Senate Judiciary Committee,
Speaker 1: and then Senator Patrick Lahey killed it, and the tech
Speaker 1: community who's really big into patent reforms, um accused him
Speaker 1: of being in the pocket of the pharmaceutical companies that
Speaker 1: would never happen in this country, who are really big
Speaker 1: into preserving the status quo. And if you really look
Speaker 1: at what's going on with patent reform today in this argument, Chuck,
Speaker 1: you've got the pharmaceutical companies versus the tech industry. Tech
Speaker 1: industry is like things are moving so fast and there's
Speaker 1: so many ideas coming out that we don't like. We
Speaker 1: can't focus on patent infringement. It shouldn't be as big
Speaker 1: of a deal because it's stifling innovation. There's people here
Speaker 1: that are scaring people from, you know, licensing computer software
Speaker 1: because this guy says that he has a patent that
Speaker 1: um you could says you could put software onto a
Speaker 1: CD rom and and and sell it that you know,
Speaker 1: that's the kind of patentrol thing. On the other side,
Speaker 1: the pharmaceutical companies say, hey, man, we make tons of
Speaker 1: money licensing our patents, and so if we are afraid
Speaker 1: of infringing on patents because they can get sued, then
Speaker 1: our investments are portfolio. Patents are going to be protected.
Speaker 1: So there's these huge behemoth lobbies like hammering it out
Speaker 1: right now in in the halls of Congress, and it
Speaker 1: seems like the Supreme Court in the federal government are
Speaker 1: siding on the tech side. Yeah. They You sent that
Speaker 1: great article from Forbes about just the problems with the
Speaker 1: modern patent system, and that was one of the great
Speaker 1: points that I can't remember who wrote the article, guy
Speaker 1: who found a priceline jay Walker. Really yeah, he said that,
Speaker 1: you know, people are so scared companies are these days
Speaker 1: of infringing on patents because if you can prove that
Speaker 1: you knew about this patent, then you could be in
Speaker 1: big trouble. So they're not even looking, which is the
Speaker 1: original idea of making these things published is like I
Speaker 1: said earlier, so people would go and look up how
Speaker 1: someone did something. Maybe I can improve upon that. So
Speaker 1: people aren't even looking now because they're afraid that they
Speaker 1: will be it'll be traced back and be like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we know that you saw this. Yeah, this patent pulled
Speaker 1: three years ago. Yeah. Because the penalties for accidental infringement
Speaker 1: and willful infringement are vastly different, it's a big problem. Well,
Speaker 1: the the jay Walker suggests that you kind of cut
Speaker 1: the courts out and maybe make some sort of make
Speaker 1: it easier to license things. So you just create some
Speaker 1: big national exchange where somebody can go and easily give
Speaker 1: somebody some money or temporarily licensed whatever they need. And
Speaker 1: he cites some um, I think a forest research study
Speaker 1: that suggests of the five point seven million patents that
Speaker 1: the US is granted, two point one active patents okay
Speaker 1: go unused and unlicensed, and of those, approximately half a
Speaker 1: million are considered to be like high quality patents. They
Speaker 1: just a lot of them are from university research. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they just sit there, yeah, and so protected. The
Speaker 1: same the same study found that like one trillion dollars
Speaker 1: of revenue is not generated each year in the United
Speaker 1: States because of this unused innovation that's just sitting there
Speaker 1: in this this um in this big pot. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: big guarded vault with a pot in it of unused ideas. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which definitely goes against the spirit of the original idea
Speaker 1: for sure, you know, Yeah, which means the system is broken.
Speaker 1: It is broke. The other way that it's broken two
Speaker 1: is the enormous backlog that's going on at the patent
Speaker 1: and Trade Office, Oh, just getting it reviewed. And yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you file a patent, and we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about this in a minute, but um, if you
Speaker 1: file a patent, chuck and they rejected, that is not
Speaker 1: the end of the story. You can keep coming back
Speaker 1: and back and back and back. In fact, you usually
Speaker 1: will get rejected on the first try for one reason
Speaker 1: or another. Right, but every time you come back, you
Speaker 1: add to the PTOs already big backlog, right of course.
Speaker 1: And so apparently there's another another study that Ours Technica
Speaker 1: wrote about or carried out that that found that there
Speaker 1: was a huge decrease in the backlog under the Obama administration.
Speaker 1: But they suspect that it was because the PTO lowered
Speaker 1: their standards and issued patents for a lot of shoddy
Speaker 1: patents just to get people to go away to clear
Speaker 1: the backlog, because that's the best way to get rid
Speaker 1: of somebody who keeps refiling their patent. It's just grand
Speaker 1: them the patent and get them out of your hair. Well,
Speaker 1: they're saying, yeah, that decreased the backlog, but it led
Speaker 1: to a lot of shoddy patents, which in turn led
Speaker 1: to the patentrol industry. Yeah, and a lot more burden
Speaker 1: on the courts to suss all this stuff out later. Exactly.
Speaker 1: The problem is the patent office has an incentive to
Speaker 1: keep letting people file and file again because they make
Speaker 1: money every time they generate revenue from that. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: cost I mean, the actual patent itself will cost you
Speaker 1: five or so that you have to up keep every
Speaker 1: year and pay a little bit more maintenance fees. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: it depends. Have you seen the feast schedule. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: like thirty or forty different things you could pay fees for. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it all depends on what how detailed your patent is
Speaker 1: and what you're trying to get through. Um. All right,
Speaker 1: well let's talk about what you can and can patent.
Speaker 1: We've talked a little bit about it. Um, you cannot
Speaker 1: patent something that is exists in the natural world, like
Speaker 1: a discovery. Like they gave another great example, Einstein's law
Speaker 1: of relativity. He can't copyright that or patent it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a thing. He might have named it and
Speaker 1: figured it out, but it occurred long before Einstein was around,
Speaker 1: just in the solar system. It kind of it belongs
Speaker 1: to the universe. It belongs to the universe. It's a
Speaker 1: good way of saying it. Um, you can patent like
Speaker 1: an industrial process, like we said computer programs. You can,
Speaker 1: but it gets a little dicey. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you have something you think might be patententable, patentable,
Speaker 1: patentable or not, what you the first step you probably
Speaker 1: should is like higher in either an agent or an attorney,
Speaker 1: an agent or a patent attorney. Yeah, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people do. And this is if you're like serious
Speaker 1: about this stuff, like you really think you're onto something.
Speaker 1: This is something you do not just hey, you got
Speaker 1: this idea for a thing. Uh, You're not gonna want
Speaker 1: to spend thousands and thousands of dollars unless you really
Speaker 1: think you're onto something. Right, So the first step you
Speaker 1: want to talk about the steps of patenting something, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess the first step you can do is to
Speaker 1: do a search yourself. Um. I think Google even has
Speaker 1: a search function to search patents in the United States,
Speaker 1: Um easily. But if not, you can definitely go to
Speaker 1: the U S Patent Office site and search you some
Speaker 1: keywords to kind of generally describe what your invention is.
Speaker 1: To just see off the bat, if there's already something
Speaker 1: out there that's patented, and there probably is. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: very rare to have a truly truly unique idea through days.
Speaker 1: But if you have something and you're like, like the
Speaker 1: guy who made the thermonuke clear fusion reactor in his
Speaker 1: garage is sixteen year old, right, if he wanted to
Speaker 1: patent that, there's probably a pretty good likelihood that he
Speaker 1: could get that patent, and then it's gonna be worth
Speaker 1: a ton of money. So we're gonna take that kid
Speaker 1: and run him through the patent process because it's gonna
Speaker 1: pay off for him in the end, despite the enormous
Speaker 1: amount of money that he's going to have to spend
Speaker 1: up front to just to get the patent protection in
Speaker 1: the United States. Right, So he searched the database. Let's
Speaker 1: say he went to the office in person, because that's
Speaker 1: what kind of kid he is, and he looked through
Speaker 1: the files and he found you know what, I think,
Speaker 1: I'm onto something. I don't see anything else in here
Speaker 1: that's super like it. I feel like it's novel and
Speaker 1: it's innovative and it's not obvious and so um, but
Speaker 1: it's there's a lot of money on the line here.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna hire a patent lawyer, who, Um, patent
Speaker 1: agents aren't attorneys. They function similarly, but an attorney obviously
Speaker 1: has a little more power under their belts. Well, they
Speaker 1: have a technical degree typically and a law degree, so
Speaker 1: the understage it just knows about the patents. They don't
Speaker 1: have the law degree. They have the technical expertise because
Speaker 1: you have to be able to look at the the
Speaker 1: actual invention and understand how it works or if somebody's
Speaker 1: just trying to pass off something dumb like you're you're
Speaker 1: not a divorce attorney and a patent attorney. You might be,
Speaker 1: but probably sure there's probably one out there. So, um,
Speaker 1: a patent lawyer will review everything and say, yet, I
Speaker 1: think you are onto something here with your garage nuclear
Speaker 1: fusion reactor. Kid, You're you're a heck of an inventor,
Speaker 1: and I think we can take this right through the roof.
Speaker 1: So who's this guy? He's you know the kids stays
Speaker 1: in the picture, dude, Hut, what's the guy? The producer,
Speaker 1: legendary producer, the r Yeah, Robert Evans, that's who. That's
Speaker 1: who this attorney is. Yeah, okay, we're getting this nailed. Man,
Speaker 1: Like we're really filling it out with great detail. Although
Speaker 1: Lionel Huts or I'm sorry Robert Evans may say, you know,
Speaker 1: there is a patent here, don't waste your time. Um,
Speaker 1: it's up to you. But like it's really similar in
Speaker 1: these ways, or maybe hey, this thing is super similar,
Speaker 1: but this actual process within your patent that you're applying
Speaker 1: for is super unique, so maybe you should just focus
Speaker 1: on that, right, and then you can license it to
Speaker 1: the person who's already got the patent exactly. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then that's the point where the kids is all right,
Speaker 1: I want to move forward on this smaller part or
Speaker 1: the original patent, and I want to fill out my
Speaker 1: application like anything else. That's the first step, as you
Speaker 1: have to fill out that application and send it in, yes,
Speaker 1: with some money, with some money depending on who get
Speaker 1: to pay that up front, right, it's for the for
Speaker 1: the application fee. Yeah yeah, um. And then after at
Speaker 1: that moment, once you file your application fee, your patent starts,
Speaker 1: so that twenty year protection that doesn't kick in when
Speaker 1: your patent is granted, like, it kicks in from the
Speaker 1: date you filed your application, So you can go out
Speaker 1: and put patent pending on your thermonuclear fusion reactor and
Speaker 1: start selling it to people. That's right. In your application,
Speaker 1: you you kind of have to spell it all out
Speaker 1: for him. You can't just throw your idea in there
Speaker 1: and say, you guys, do the research and see if
Speaker 1: there's anything else out there. You have to list any
Speaker 1: kind of um, potential roadblocks and prior art that may
Speaker 1: be similar for them to review. You have to briefly
Speaker 1: summarize your invention. You have to give a description of
Speaker 1: what they call their preferred embodiment, which means how are
Speaker 1: you going to use this thing basically, yeah, or like
Speaker 1: what shape is it supposed to take? How do the
Speaker 1: components fitting together? Uh? And then your claims, which are
Speaker 1: this is the most important part um, and this is
Speaker 1: what you're actually going to be arguing about in court
Speaker 1: if you have to go that route. Is your claim
Speaker 1: and that is the actual legal description of your invention, right,
Speaker 1: and Uh, if you're claim is very well written, if
Speaker 1: you spring for a great lawyer Robert Evans, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: this claim is going to be very well written, very concise,
Speaker 1: very um descriptive and so, but also sufficiently vague. Sure
Speaker 1: you know, because when you do take somebody to court,
Speaker 1: and you say, this guy has totally ripped me off.
Speaker 1: Here's my patent. Here's the description of what my thing does.
Speaker 1: Now look at what this guy is doing. It's the
Speaker 1: exact same thing that my patent lawyer described years ago
Speaker 1: when I filed my patent application. So the claim is
Speaker 1: extremely important. I mean like it's it's basically it's as
Speaker 1: important as getting the patent itself. Yeah, yeah, totally. Um,
Speaker 1: how much you're gonna pay that attorney all depends, of course,
Speaker 1: on how many hours they spend. But they put in
Speaker 1: this article between five thousand and twenty dollars. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: saw more than that. I'm sure it can get up
Speaker 1: to as much as you know. I'm sure corporations pay
Speaker 1: these people a lot of money. Yeah, Well, the patent
Speaker 1: office actually has a sliding sc ale of um fee
Speaker 1: fee schedules. So like, if you are a micro entity
Speaker 1: I think, which is like just probably one guy, you're
Speaker 1: a you're an inventor, you're gonna pay the least. If
Speaker 1: you're a corporation, you're gonna pay the most. And that's
Speaker 1: for the patent fees, not the attorney's fees. Right, they
Speaker 1: don't care about those. No, But if you're a corporation
Speaker 1: and you have a lot of like a large patent portfolio,
Speaker 1: and you have an R and D company, you have
Speaker 1: a patent attorney, a stable patent attornies you are working
Speaker 1: on that anyway to have their own office in your building.
Speaker 1: But I saw for m A in a two thousand
Speaker 1: five article, I saw a a study had found that
Speaker 1: for a small size business, so probably the middle slot
Speaker 1: of the schedule fee UM, it would cost about three
Speaker 1: thousand dollars to get and maintain patents in ten industrialized countries.
Speaker 1: So I mean, like, if you've got a thermonuclear fusee
Speaker 1: and reactor and it works, it's gonna totally be worth that.
Speaker 1: You want to patent it everywhere you can possibly do
Speaker 1: that because you're going to make You're you're going to
Speaker 1: change the world with it, and probably as many sub
Speaker 1: patents as you can create. If you are kind of
Speaker 1: shaky on your idea or you don't think it's gonna
Speaker 1: end up paying off that much, then who knows, Maybe
Speaker 1: a high flute and patent attorney isn't the way to go,
Speaker 1: but maybe you go the route of like a UM
Speaker 1: inventors help group, Like there's actually one called invent help,
Speaker 1: and some of those some of those things are scams.
Speaker 1: I looked up invent help. It appears to be totally legitimate.
Speaker 1: It's got an a minus rating on the Better Business Bureau.
Speaker 1: What do they do? Um? You have you ever watched
Speaker 1: like daytime television? They're like inventors, Do you want to
Speaker 1: help get your invention to market? They do every every
Speaker 1: step of the way, like you submit your invention. I
Speaker 1: think they help you get it patented, to help you
Speaker 1: market it. They may set up a website to sell
Speaker 1: it on TV. Yes, they get a piece of the
Speaker 1: revenue down the streath, down the line. Or they may
Speaker 1: also require fees along the way. Um, but some of
Speaker 1: them are kind of scammy. Apparently invent help is not UM.
Speaker 1: And then another good resource for you if you are
Speaker 1: an inventor of limited means, would probably be to get
Speaker 1: to the Lemilson Foundation that was established by that inventor
Speaker 1: Jerome Lemilson, who spent most of his career suing companies
Speaker 1: that we're using as his patented stuff. Um. They I
Speaker 1: think it's called Lemilson Foundation dot org. They have a
Speaker 1: bunch of programs to help inventors, especially young inventors. It's
Speaker 1: a good place to start. I would think, all right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna finish up on how to finish up the
Speaker 1: patent process and a few more critiques right after this. Alright,
Speaker 1: so this kid has has turned his idea into the
Speaker 1: patent office. Um, like we said earlier, it has a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance of getting rejected on the first pass,
Speaker 1: and they will tell you exactly why, and then it's
Speaker 1: up to you whether or not you want to redo
Speaker 1: it or just bail on it all together, or you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, redo it and resubmit it and see
Speaker 1: how your luck runs. Right, And the reasons for rejection
Speaker 1: can be myriad, you know, like literally thirty thousand different reasons. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it can be something from the patent office saying like
Speaker 1: we think that this is way too close to another
Speaker 1: already patent invention. We don't think it's necessarily an improvement,
Speaker 1: it's not useful. These are the very high level reasons
Speaker 1: they can be rejected. If that happens, then you might
Speaker 1: want to go back to the drawing board. And more frequently,
Speaker 1: I think it's like we think the wording and your
Speaker 1: claim is a little too vague. We don't quite understand
Speaker 1: the description. Can you make these changes to this paragraph
Speaker 1: You're drawing is missing a label like the the patent
Speaker 1: is supposed to be flawless, well written, the like. If
Speaker 1: you hire a patent attorney, they're going to hire an
Speaker 1: artist to do the drawing for that's submitted to the
Speaker 1: patent office. Um, so it's like really supposed to be
Speaker 1: professional and well done and so like for any minute
Speaker 1: technical detail, they can reject it, but then they'll also
Speaker 1: explain why, and then you can just make the change
Speaker 1: in refile. Um. If it's something that's just kind of
Speaker 1: open new interpretation. If you have a patent attorney, your
Speaker 1: patent attorney can be like, let's negotiate this point and
Speaker 1: hopefully get the whole thing passed through. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if you have to go back to the back of
Speaker 1: the line, or if you have a new phone number
Speaker 1: you can call. I don't know for like, you know, man,
Speaker 1: that's the key, isn't it. Get that that secret phone
Speaker 1: number to the person who actually picks up the first time,
Speaker 1: and you can be like, please help me. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I don't think one thing we did mention if you uh,
Speaker 1: and it gets really dicey if you work for a
Speaker 1: company and you have an invention as an employee of
Speaker 1: that company. Um. There have been countless hanky situations. I
Speaker 1: remember the one they made the movie about the guy
Speaker 1: who um invented the delayed Winschield wiper. Is that a
Speaker 1: documentary that's out on Netflix? There probably is, But I
Speaker 1: think what's his face to the guy from As Good
Speaker 1: as It Gets Great can here? Um? I didn't see
Speaker 1: the movie though, but I think that was a case
Speaker 1: of someone who works for or worked for a company,
Speaker 1: or maybe he didn't work for a company. Maybe he
Speaker 1: just presented it to car companies and he thinks they
Speaker 1: ripped him off. But if you work for a company,
Speaker 1: you might get the pat but the company might still
Speaker 1: own the product or the process that you invented, you know,
Speaker 1: because you did it as their employee under their per view.
Speaker 1: But you might still get a personal patent for it,
Speaker 1: but maybe you might not benefit like you would as
Speaker 1: a as a private person. No, And basically, if you're
Speaker 1: an inventor, good luck getting a contract with the Corporation
Speaker 1: of the United States where you don't automatically sign over
Speaker 1: every bit of your invention to that company. Or if
Speaker 1: you are if you create anything creative, you are probably
Speaker 1: have a work for higher contract where all of your
Speaker 1: work that you write or draw, or design or compose
Speaker 1: automatically belongs to the company. So the ironic thing is
Speaker 1: it is like you are technically the creator of that
Speaker 1: work or that invention, but if you go and republish it,
Speaker 1: like on your own personal website, you're infringing on this
Speaker 1: copyright right um, that your your company owns, and your
Speaker 1: company can sue you to to to stop or to
Speaker 1: do whatever. Um. And that's a big critique of the
Speaker 1: patent system too, is that there's not a lot that
Speaker 1: the Patent and Trade Office can do about it. But
Speaker 1: just the way the system works right now, corporations have
Speaker 1: all of the power as far as patents go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it's such a tough thing. I mean, you hear.
Speaker 1: They're just countless stories from history of so and so
Speaker 1: invented this this thing that we all use, but they
Speaker 1: never made a penny off of it because they did
Speaker 1: it for IBM, or like the guys who invented Superman,
Speaker 1: they were paid like a hundred and fifty or three
Speaker 1: hundred bucks by d C and um basically told thanks
Speaker 1: a lot and over the years is DC made tens
Speaker 1: and tens and hundreds of millions of dollars off of Superman.
Speaker 1: These guys were like, like, this isn't right, And finally,
Speaker 1: after there was enough outcry, they were granted like some
Speaker 1: some back revenue. They got a cape. Do you remember
Speaker 1: our Christmas extravaganza from last year? The guy who composed
Speaker 1: Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer for Montgomer Reward and hit
Speaker 1: on hard times and the president of Montgomery Ward granted
Speaker 1: him the copyright to root off the Red Nosed Reindeer.
Speaker 1: That like, that doesn't happen, Yeah, and that's that's a copyright,
Speaker 1: not a patent er and invention. It's I see both
Speaker 1: sides a little bit. You know. I always think that
Speaker 1: corporations are the ones taking advantage. But if you work
Speaker 1: for IBM and you have they have given you the
Speaker 1: resources and paid you money to do this, then that's
Speaker 1: you know, quit your job and go invent something on
Speaker 1: your own. Then you know, yeah, um so a kind
Speaker 1: of see both sides, But generally I think corporations probably
Speaker 1: sticking it to the man. So, speaking of corporations sticking
Speaker 1: it to the man or humanity in general, UM is
Speaker 1: of the pharmaceutical industry again, so I said that they're
Speaker 1: they're very happy with UM. The status quo and one
Speaker 1: of the great criticisms of the patent system now as
Speaker 1: it is is you can get a patent. You can
Speaker 1: buy a pat and just sit on it, like you
Speaker 1: can buy a patent, say from a competitor, or from
Speaker 1: somebody who may be a competitor down the road and
Speaker 1: prevent them from making it. Even if this thing benefits humanity,
Speaker 1: even if it literally saves people's lives, you can you
Speaker 1: can sit on a patent, and apparently drug companies have
Speaker 1: been known to do that. There was one famous UM
Speaker 1: case with a company called am Gen, and they developed
Speaker 1: an anemia drug that treated anemia and iron deficiency and
Speaker 1: it worked really well. Um the problem is is like
Speaker 1: the body absorbed it really quick, so you had to
Speaker 1: take large doses for your whole life. Apparently this researchers
Speaker 1: chemist found a way to make the drug longer lasting,
Speaker 1: which in am Gen's mind meant, well, we can't make
Speaker 1: as much money off of it. So this lady was like,
Speaker 1: can I just see your patents and I can figure
Speaker 1: out a way to to latch this onto your drug
Speaker 1: and save lives and a. And it's like, no, we're
Speaker 1: not gonna let you see our our materials are researched.
Speaker 1: We don't want to make that better man. But so
Speaker 1: that and that's that's not as overt as buying a
Speaker 1: patent sitting on it to keep people from doing it.
Speaker 1: But that does happen like it's a it's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a competitive way to navigate the business climate. Well,
Speaker 1: put Josh, you've worked your way around that one very nicely. Oh,
Speaker 1: I got something here. Um, if you it might take
Speaker 1: like a year to five years to get this patent
Speaker 1: um from pending two approved. And let's say you put
Speaker 1: in an idea very similar to someone else around the
Speaker 1: same time. That happens all the time. If that happens,
Speaker 1: they declare and what they call an interference a dance off,
Speaker 1: a dance off exactly, And they have to actually have
Speaker 1: a little trial, um, a little trial like they serve
Speaker 1: tea and everything's in minuture, everything small. Um. They have
Speaker 1: a trial where they basically figure out who got there first. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a very famous case of um Alexander Graham Bell
Speaker 1: and Elijah Gray Um basically putting in a pattern for
Speaker 1: the telephone at the same time. And I guess for
Speaker 1: a long time it was whoever could prove they invented
Speaker 1: it first in the United States was the one who
Speaker 1: got the patent. And then I just to simplify things,
Speaker 1: in March of two, the US changed its patent law.
Speaker 1: So now the first inventor to file is the one
Speaker 1: who receives the patent. So even if it's by a minute,
Speaker 1: whoever got it there first is the one who gets
Speaker 1: the patent. That's why filing that patent right away is
Speaker 1: uh is your best defense? Like go now, stop, press pause,
Speaker 1: and go do it right now. Seriously, if you have
Speaker 1: an invention, Um, I just got one more thing on
Speaker 1: the the old the infamous poor man's patent or poor
Speaker 1: man's copyright. Sure, everyone's heart, Like all you gotta do
Speaker 1: is write it out and mail it to yourself. I
Speaker 1: think I suggested that on this this this show before,
Speaker 1: didn't you remember? I don't remember that. But that is
Speaker 1: just an old wives tale that's not going to hold
Speaker 1: up in court. It's basically worthless. But I don't understand
Speaker 1: why if like right when you create the work, it
Speaker 1: automatically is copyrighted why would that, like dating it not
Speaker 1: make it not just substantiated even more Well not, I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about writing a book. I'm talking about Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm I did this invention and here's the schematic and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna mail Okay, okay, So it could work for
Speaker 1: something copyrighted, but not a patent. Well no, I mean
Speaker 1: if it's if it's just an original work of art
Speaker 1: you've created, like a book, then like I said, it's
Speaker 1: already copyrighted, so they doesn't even apply. Okay, So but
Speaker 1: if you invented something in designed it and just mail
Speaker 1: this to yourself, it's worthless. Basically you can't prove like
Speaker 1: envelopes can be steamed open and manipulated like that's not
Speaker 1: gonna hold up in court. You can do it if
Speaker 1: you want, sure, take it to court. I have an
Speaker 1: extra stamp that I don't know what to do with.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, let's see you got anything else? Nothing else?
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about patents, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: actually surprisingly interesting stuff. Um you can type that word
Speaker 1: in the search part how stuff works dot com. And
Speaker 1: since I said that, it's time for a listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this. Thanks for the panic attack episode.
Speaker 1: I'm glad they said episode. We've got a lot of
Speaker 1: great feedback. I think this touched a lot of people
Speaker 1: because they're way more common than you think. Um, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: love the episode on panic attacks. I have them in college,
Speaker 1: brought on by normal college stress plus the loss of
Speaker 1: a beloved uncle. I would often wake up in the
Speaker 1: night standing in the hall of my dorm feeling like
Speaker 1: I could not breathe. Sometimes I would be awake enough
Speaker 1: to think I'm dying. I just need to get the
Speaker 1: hallway so someone will find me or my body. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I would just wake up screaming. What helped and the
Speaker 1: reason I'm writing was some wonderful therapy offered through my
Speaker 1: university's health services, along with some antidepressants. In the support
Speaker 1: of my family and friends. I learned coping mechanisms to
Speaker 1: get me through my anxiety, how to express my stress
Speaker 1: so I wasn't bottling at all up inside, and the
Speaker 1: importance of taking time to rest my mind and body.
Speaker 1: With all the help, I was able to leave therapy
Speaker 1: after a few semesters, was able to recognize that I
Speaker 1: needed it again later and graduate school. After the birth
Speaker 1: and my second year with my much loved but very
Speaker 1: unplanned child. I urge all college students, graduate and undergrad
Speaker 1: to really take advantage of their mental health services that
Speaker 1: are offered to them. For me, as a student at
Speaker 1: my university, each session was only ten bucks. Man, remember
Speaker 1: that college. All that stuff was so cheap, like the doctor.
Speaker 1: You can go see a shrink for like five dollars.
Speaker 1: I remember I got acupuncture of like three bucks a
Speaker 1: sessionally they no I did that in l A through
Speaker 1: a university though my roommate there's just some dude exactly
Speaker 1: he was good with a needle. Um uh. And it
Speaker 1: could also be charged to my bursts our account, which
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is. Burs sir. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't have one on those ben't. Yeah, I remember
Speaker 1: that from college, but I don't remember what it was.
Speaker 1: I think the word looks familiar. The health building was
Speaker 1: on campus, so sessions fit right into my schedule. And
Speaker 1: I can't stress enough how beneficial it was for me.
Speaker 1: Without therapy, I would no doubt have not made it
Speaker 1: through college and graduate school. There's no shame in therapy
Speaker 1: or medication to help you through tough times. Turns out
Speaker 1: pretty much everyone goes through it to some extent, and
Speaker 1: no one is weak for getting help. Admitting you need
Speaker 1: help is what makes you a stronger person. In my opinion,
Speaker 1: and Rosalie Maltby, researcher at the University of Oklahoma Department
Speaker 1: of Biology, I couldn't agree more. Well, thanks a lot,
Speaker 1: is it Rosa Lee, Rosalie, Rosalie, Thanks a lot, Rosalie.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you writing and spreading that message because it's
Speaker 1: a good one. Very pretty name as well. Um, if
Speaker 1: you have a patent, we want to hear from you.
Speaker 1: Tell us what your patent is so we'll steal it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, can't. It's patented about. If you've got
Speaker 1: a great idea that you haven't yet patented, send that
Speaker 1: to us. Whatever you want to do. You can tweet
Speaker 1: to us at s y s K podcast. You can
Speaker 1: join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1: You can send us an email to Stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com, and as always, joined us
Speaker 1: at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know
Speaker 1: dot com For more on this and thousands of other topics.
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff Works dot com.