Week 12 - Silly Patents - Baby Bottom Art

Week 12 - Silly Patents - Don Saddle

Silly Patents - Optical Illusion Wear

US Patent 7107621 was granted for optical illusion wear, which is basically a suit for females that has a pattern conducive to thinking they are skinnier than they actually are. Although perhaps there would be some market acceptance for such a product, it is unlikely that the patent should have been granted based on the requirements for patentability. 

1) In terms of novelty, it is not the first article of clothing that has attempted at making people look skinnier, even if it is the first that uses the design.

2) The biggest question here is whether the suit is useful by the standards of patents. In my opinion, this should not pass the test for usefulness. 

If anything, I believe that this should have been granted a design patent instead of a utility patent.

(Information obtained from http://www.patentlysilly.com/patent.php?patID=7107621)

Silly Patents - Cross USB Drive

US patent D533179 was issued for a Cross shaped USB Drive. The fact that the USB drive is shaped in the form of a cross pulls upon many different forms of art that also uses a cross. In fact, the only reason someone would specifically want this specific form would be if they were devout Christians who wanted a cross as the shape for such a device. I am surprised that this was granted a patent because it seems that the "invention" didn't really meet the criteria for patentability.

1) The novelty of the device - based on prior art, there is no way that the cross shaped USB should have been granted the patent.

2) Obviousness - this criteria is not really applicable here since the invention is not really a combination of multiple elements in prior art.

Since we did not discuss design patents this semester, does anyone know if this patent follows the requirements specific for design patents as opposed to utility patents? Is it possible for practically any design to receive a patent?


(Information obtained from http://www.patentlysilly.com/patent.php?patID=D533179)

Week 10 - Overview of Obviousness

Week 10 - Titanium Metals Corporation of America vs. Banner

United States vs. Adams

A famous court decision in the area of obviousness came in United States vs. Adams, which took place in 1966. The patent under consideration was related to a electrical battery that was composed of a magnesium electrode and a cuprous chloride electrode. Adams and his team stated that this was a unique battery because it did not utilize dangerous acids or other harmful chemicals. Also this was a battery that could be used in dry conditions without the addition of water, which separated it from other batteries at the time. The US wanted to review this patent that was validated and infringed upon. Adams and his team actually first charged the Government with infringement and the Government responded by challenging the validity of the patent in the first case.

The Government at the time signed contracts with multiple large firms to make the battery without letting Adams or any members of his team know. The US challenged the validity of the patent based on obviousness, which related to the fact that using chemical reactions as a source of electricity was a well known strategy. The only difference was that Adams used magnesium instead of zinc and cuprous chloride instead of silver chloride.

However, unlike many of the famous obviousness cases, Adams and his team came out victorious due to the key concept that the battery did not require water to function. This case was cited in many subsequent cases including the famous KSR vs. Teleflex, as a patent that did satisfy the requirement for nonobviousness, even with the combination of known elements.

As evidence by this case, it is possible to combine two or more elements of prior art, while still remaining innovative. Although it becomes a little tougher to prove your patent was truly innovative, the main point is to ensure that you have one key selling point that differentiates you from anything that the related prior art could solve alone.

Anderson's-Black Rock Incorporated vs. Pavement Salvage Company

Not many cases in history can claim to have changed the legal standards in patent law. One such case that did was Anderson's-Black Rock Incorporated vs. Pavement Salvage Company, which took place in 1969. The issued patent claimed to solve the problem that exists at the junction between old and new sections of asphalt roads. The invention combined previously used elements, the machine chassis the spreading and shaping equipment, and the heat burner.

The District Court decided that the only thing the inventor did was combine already known and widely used elements into one apparatus. Because of this, they invalidated the patent. Next, the Court of Appeals reversed this decision, which brought the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ended up siding with the District Court and stated, "The combination of putting the burner together with the other elements in one machine, though perhaps a matter of great convenience, did not produce a new or different function." This case was one of the first landmark cases that addressed the idea of the unpatentability of inventions that combined old elements in an obvious manner.

This is an important historical case, as many inventions utilize elements from various other inventions that are already in use. The main idea here is that the combination has to provide some sort of utility that was not provided by the elements individually. Although this is a slightly subjective concept, it does restrict patents getting approved for the combinations of already used inventions that don't really benefit anyone. I was interested here to see that the court conceded the fact that the combination of the elements into the one apparatus did provide great convenience, which in some courts may have been enough to hold the patent as valid. The result from this case has since been used in major cases regarding obviousness such as KSR vs. Teflex.

(Information obtained from http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/396/57/)

Extra Credit Post - Sinclair and Carrol vs. Interchemical Corporation

In 1945, Sinclair and Carrol vs. Interchemical Corporation was a US Supreme Court case that involved obviousness. In this case, Interchemical Corporation sued Sinclair and Carrol for infringing upon patents for inks. The patent specifically belonged to Albert Gessler, who was a member of Interchemical Corporation. Basically this patent involved inks that had the ability to dry when heat was applied, but did not readily dry in room temperatures. At the time, this was considered a very valuable patent due to the fact that the ink could be utilized on different types of papers.

When taken to the Supreme Court, the court claimed that the said patent was not valid because "subject matter must display invention, more ingenuity than the work of a mechanic skilled in the art." Although this is rather insulting to an inventor who likely spent much time on this invention, the court was clear that the patent was "not the product of long and difficult experimentation and that reading a list and selecting a known compound to meet known requirements is not more ingenious than selecting the last piece to put into the last opening in a jig-saw puzzle."

What I found particularly interesting in this case was that it stated that many had previously tried to make an ink with the specifications of that made by Gessler. This likely means that the court heavily exaggerated the analogy to a jig-saw puzzle, and used too much hindsight bias. With the knowledge I have about this case, I likely would have been in favor of keeping the patent as valid, due to the fact that clearly there was a market pressure for such an ink. The case went through three levels of courts, with the District Court invalidating the patent, the Circuit Court validating the patent, and finally the Supreme Court invalidating the patent again. 

A portion of claim 3 in the patent is shown below:

"A printing ink which is substantially non-drying at ordinary temperatures and dries instantly on heating of the printed matter, consisting of coloring matter dispersed in an organic viscous vehicle consisting of a liquid component and a solid component..."

(Information obtained from http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/325/327/)

Extra Credit Post - Hotchkiss vs. Greenwood

The first case in the US Supreme Court that addressed the concept of non-obviousness as a patentability requirement was Hotchkiss vs. Greenwood, which took place in 1850. Hotchkiss was suing the defendant Greenwood for infringing a patent for new doorknobs that utilized clay as opposed to metal, which was the norm at the time. During the trial, the judge gave a groundbreaking instruction to the jury, which was to invalidate the patent if the only difference between the Hotchkiss doorknobs and the normal ones was the material. If all other components were the same, the jury was instructed to rule against the plaintiff. Because the patent was invalidated, the trial was not further continued.

Although a case of this simplicity is unlikely nowadays, this case shows the historical roots for this requirement, which is now the basis for many patent lawsuits and revoked patents. Although the judge perhaps went too far by essentially telling the jury how to rule in this case, I believe that the judge really affected the course of patent history in a positive way. This case set the precedent that patents will not be approved if there is an obvious lack of ingenuity and has too much obviousness.

Below is an actual excerpt from the approved patent:

"A new and useful improvement in making door and other knobs of all kinds of clay used in pottery, and of porcelain by having the cavity in which the screw or shank is inserted by which they are fastened largest at the bottom of its depth, in form of a dovetail, and a screw formed therein by pouring in metal in a fused state."

(Information obtained from http://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/52/248/)