Recent Posts

1

Patent Questions and Advice / Re: PPA - How much detail is too much?

« Last post by Brad on Today at 11:21:26 AM »

I usually tell people not to spend a lot of time on the claims and usually most non-patent people don't write the claims properly to begin with.  However, writing the claims in a PPA serves a valuable purpose though because it forces you to focus and cover the key aspects of your invention.   So I would suggest writing these out in at least bullet point format and you can include them in the Brief Summary of the Invention section but don't really need to file them as "claims" in the PPA or spend time trying to word them in "legal speak" to make them look like proper claims.

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Patent Questions and Advice / Re: PPA - How much detail is too much?

« Last post by DeepOrange on Today at 01:16:42 AM »

Thanks Brad. That is comforting!

On the same track, would putting numerous claims into a PPA be appropriate as well?
I understand that many claims will be rejected when converting to a full patent, and quite likely that the embodiment of the invention will change.

Is therefore unnecessary to be fixated on claims at all?

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Patent Questions and Advice / Re: PPA - How much detail is too much?

« Last post by Brad on April 21, 2019, 09:13:10 AM »

Usually having too much details is better than leaving something out so it sounds like you are doing everything properly.

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Invention Prototyping and Development / Re: Anyone out there actually have a protro type fabricated?

« Last post by DeepOrange on April 21, 2019, 07:22:32 AM »

Consider using online services such as Fivver or Guru.

They can often convert your sketches into workable designs to get 3d printed or machined for very low costs.

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Patent Questions and Advice / PPA - How much detail is too much?

« Last post by DeepOrange on April 21, 2019, 07:16:20 AM »

Hi.

I am drafting a PPA for a kitchen apparatus. I have gone into great detail (approx 4000 words and 14 drawings) describing the various preferred components and methods of operation, both in general and specific terms.

I have built a crude proof of concept prototype, but the PPA describes a much more detailed embodiment, that is yet to be proven physically.
The mechanisms are fairly simple, but the description describes them in detail even though (in my opinion) the functions are quite obvious.

My question is can you go into too much detail? Or is it better to leave a PPA more general and add the specific detail later when converting to a full patent?

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Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Confusion: Expiration date(s) of plumpynut food paste

« Last post by Arnold on April 13, 2019, 03:04:32 PM »

Thank you very much Mister Fach for your answer.

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Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Confusion: Expiration date(s) of plumpynut food paste

« Last post by Brad on April 11, 2019, 09:25:26 PM »

If I had to guess Google Patents is not able to properly calculate the expiration of patents outside of the US and even calculating a proper US expiration date can be challenging as some patents can have "patent term extension" added onto the end of their 20 year period.

One other website you may want to try is:  https://worldwide.espacenet.com/?locale=en_EP

Other than that the safest bet would be to figure out which countries you were most interested in and hiring a patent attorney in each country to research this for you (note each country has their own patent rules around expirations which is why Google is not always a reliable source)

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Patent Questions and Advice / Confusion: Expiration date(s) of plumpynut food paste

« Last post by Arnold on April 11, 2019, 10:34:55 AM »

Hello together,

when i searched when the (highly controversial) patent for the plumpynut paste will expire i learned that for some place it is already expired, but there are several out there with different filling dates wich led to my confusion.


Here unter WO(/GB?) the filing date was 2005:

https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2005096837A2/en?q=plumpynut&oq=plumpynut

Questions:

1.)Is the Great Britain patent running till 2025?

2.) Why are here WO/DK/AP not listed as expired, are they not expired?

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6346284B1/en?oq=US+patent+6346284


3.) Is the WIPO/World Patent for plumpynut still running?

4.)Is there a better solution/website than google-patents, that will list all plumpynut patents and shows if/when they are expired?

Best wishes,

Arnold

9

Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Expired Provisional Patent

« Last post by Brad on April 07, 2019, 08:06:53 PM »

Hi Ashraf,

You can only re-file your provisional patent application if your idea is either:
(1) Still secret, or
(2) Was made public or offered for sale less than 12 months ago.

If you can satisfy either items 1 or 2 from above you can likely re-file your provisional but there are some risks associated with this.  Here is my standard warning I send to people that want to re-file:


*WARNING - the risk of re-filing a provisional patent application again and again is that each time you start with a brand new filing date and you cannot link the applications together.  Most of the time this is okay, however, there are times when your competition may invent an identical or similar device and may be able to "jump ahead of you in line" at the patent office or possible block your patent from being allowed.  For example, if you filed your first provisional in March 2013 and it expired in March 2014 and your competition invented a similar device in April 2014 and started selling it online, then if we re-filed your new provisional application in June 2014, the the patent office could use your competition's April 2014 invention to block you from getting a patent because your filing date would be seen as June 2014 (i.e. after their invention).

One other risk is that if your idea was made public or offered for sale prior to us re-filing the provisional, you will probably lose the option to file in countries outside of the USA because they have more strict rules on "absolute novelty" when compared to the US Patent Office. 


We can sometimes file your provisional patent application "as is" without any review or input from us for a fixed fee of $250 + USPTO fees of $70-$140 for most people.   (note I am leaving on vacation through April 22, 2019 and will not be able to help you until I return).

Thanks

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Patent Questions and Advice / Re: Expired Provisional Patent

« Last post by Ashraf Alshaikh on April 06, 2019, 05:07:57 PM »

Hello
I have expired provisional patent under my name. Can you establish a new filing date and one year period for me?
How long it will take?
How much it will cost?
Appreciate your support.
Ashraf