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