One of the greatest opportunities came my way earlier this year. I received a call from Jimmy Bollman with the Francis Tuttle Vo-Tech here in Oklahoma City. Mr. Bollman asked if I would be interested in mentoring and assisting some of his technical student is obtaining patents for their semester projects, with Mr. Bollman willing to pay the fees for the patent applications out of his own personal funds. ( I tried to keep the costs at a minimum, but he paid them). At first, I was rather skeptical that these young teenagers could possibly have any ideas worthy of a patent. Oh, my goodness – was I in for a treat.

I spoke to several three member groups of students about their ideas, which were class projects that Mr. Bollman had them develop for his class. I discovered remarkable insight, remarkable talent and remarkable vision. An old geezer like me was absolutely delighted that these young minds were so progressive and visionary.

We ended up doing three patent applications, a trademark, a copyright and left several other ideas in a position for further development. These youngsters taught me as much as I taught them. Wow! … And I almost lost out because of a preconceived notion that the next good idea couldn’t possible come from someone their age and without further education.

My thoughts about mentoring youth have severely changed, as has my hope and confidence in the future. These kids are brilliant and under the right educational guidance (Jimmy Bollman) amazing things lie in store for us. Hope for the future is re-established and I am so excited that I have the opportunity to work with these student for a whole calendar year next year. I believe that other vocational schools should follow suit and I hope that they would see the benefit of these programs to a point where dedicated instructors were not having to sacrifice their own funds to make patents and other protection of brilliant ideas possible. The cost to return is nominal and the benefits to the students is the ability to change the world. The schools might even take a royalty interest in the revenue from these patents to recover their costs and expenses.

The future is solid and the time spent helping our youth along the pathway of development of creative thought is well worth it. Thanks kids, for teaching an old dog some new tricks!

Randy Homburg

I had a prospective client visit with me about an idea he had earlier last week. Our conversation was going well until he let me know that he had been selling his product that he thought he might patent since last Spring – not this last spring, but LAST last spring. He had been selling his product for about 14 months and told me “…things are going so well I think I’ll get a patent on this product before its too late.” He had sold over 2500 units by this time and was hoping to sell a great deal more.

That is when I told him about the law on patents. You see, there is this little trap out there that affects more people than one would think. It involves statutory bars against getting a patent on your idea after a certain period of time and due to certain events either committed by an inventor or someone else on the inventor’s behalf. These can and will result in a loss of rights to patent protection, and unfortunately involve procrastination for the most part. He could still sell his products, but so could anyone else.

Under 35 USC Section 102, a person is statutorily barred if: (1) they use or sell their product for more than a year before applying for a patent here or in a foreign country; (2) they publicly publish their idea more than a year before applying for a patent here or in a foreign country; (3) the invention was known or used by others in this country; or (4) they apply for a foreign patent more than one year before seeking application in this or another country. There’s a lot more in that statute, but these are four common bars involved in that statute.

My client told me his prototype “Guru” told him that getting it made and sold was more important than getting it protected. “Guru” forgot to mention statutory bars. I was later told that “guru” also told him to lie to his patent attorney and just not tell him about the prior sales, but my prospective client wasn’t will to lie to me.

Patent practitioners are well aware of the statutes that affect inventions and patents, trademarks certain other relevant statutes that affect their profession. There are quick and effective ways to preserve your rights to make, use and sell your idea with at least patent pending protection, with some being quite reasonable for at least a manner of preserving your rights to future patent protection and avoiding statutory bars. Avoid procrastination and seek good sound advise from an expert.

It is very easy to get burned out there and sometimes its by your own matches.

I had a prospective client visit with me about an idea he had earlier last week. Our conversation was going well until he let me know that he had been selling his product that he thought he might patent since last Spring – not this last spring, but LAST last spring. He had been selling his product for about 14 months and told me “…things are going so well I think I’ll get a patent on this product before its too late.” He had sold over 2500 units by this time and was hoping to sell a great deal more.

That is when I told him about the law on patents. You see, there is this little trap out there that affects more people than one would think. It involves statutory bars against getting a patent on your idea after a certain period of time and due to certain events either committed by an inventor or someone else on the inventor’s behalf. These can and will result in a loss of rights to patent protection, and unfortunately involve procrastination for the most part. He could still sell his products, but so could anyone else.

Under 35 USC Section 102, a person is statutorily barred if: (1) they use or sell their product for more than a year before applying for a patent here or in a foreign country; (2) they publicly publish their idea more than a year before applying for a patent here or in a foreign country; (3) the invention was known or used by others in this country; or (4) they apply for a foreign patent more than one year before seeking application in this or another country. There’s a lot more in that statute, but these are four common bars involved in that statute.

My client told me his prototype “Guru” told him that getting it made and sold was more important than getting it protected. “Guru” forgot to mention statutory bars. I was later told that “guru” also told him to lie to his patent attorney and just not tell him about the prior sales, but my prospective client wasn’t will to lie to me.

Patent practitioners are well aware of the statutes that affect inventions and patents, trademarks certain other relevant statutes that affect their profession. There are quick and effective ways to preserve your rights to make, use and sell your idea with at least patent pending protection, with some being quite reasonable for at least a manner of preserving your rights to future patent protection and avoiding statutory bars. Avoid procrastination and seek good sound advise from an expert.

It is very easy to get burned out there and sometimes its by your own matches.

Many inventors work for someone else. As part of their job, and especially when you sign an employee agreement, anything you invent is generally owned by your employer. That part of the employee agreement is that part that most of us don’t read – especially when we are glad we found a good job. While your employer may have a claim to your work product conceived on the job, does that necessarily mean that they own your mind or your patentable products entirely.

A Federal Circuit Court ruled that not everything you conceive belongs to your employer. Applera Corp. Applied Biosystems Group v. Illumina, Inc. 2009-1260 210 WL 1169936 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 25, 2010) That case held that even though a scientist signed an employee invention agreement that required that inventions he created during his employment belonged to his employer, since he was able to prove that his invention was developed outside his work on his own time and on his own equipment, his employer was not the owner of his invention. The inventor invented a method for sequencing DNS on his own time, on his own computer and without the assistance of any of his company’s trade sequence. Thus, the Court ruled there was no automatic assignment.

If you work for a company, you don’t necessarily turn over your brain and all your creativity for the sake of your employer. However, you are cautioned that if you are going to claim rights to an invention, you must do so by making sure that you use no company resources to develop your invention, and certainly discouraged from working on your own invention on company time. Many employers are not so strict that they don’t allow certain latitudes for working on your own projects outside your working hours. You are strongly advised to ensure that working on an independent project is done with approval and to obtain your supervisor’s of department head’s written authorization to do so and also not to disclose the precise nature of your development project. The disclosure alone may very well give rights to your employer.

By no means am I encouraging you to steal anything. However, I am encouraging you not to allow anyone to steal from you. I had an old boss tell me one time (pardon the crude language – it was a welding shop) , “We own your butt (%@*&$) for eight hours a day, but don ‘t let anyone ever think they own your brain.” Thank you Lewis for the quote, by the way.

Don’t let your invention be the subject of an intellectual property “tug-of-war”. See the picture of the rope? That’s your invention. There should only be one set of hands on that rope. It is much easier to handle that way and far more useful.

Holler at me if you need assistance with your domestic patent and trademark issues. You can always find me at www.patentlawman.com or e-mail me at rhomburg@cox.net. Happy new year!

In just 16 days, I am expanding my horizons.

Its the end of the year already.  During this busy time, it is very difficult to sit down and focus on our accomplishments, much less plan for next year.  Our businesses, families and projects seem to get placed on hold or put off until “next year”.  I’m certainly guilty.