Winter
2006 Volume 12.1
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Patent |
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MEMS Display Patent |
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270 Patents Issued |
gPatent LLC
Generating
Patents from your Silicon & Software
I have reorganized my consulting business and am now operating as "gPatent LLC" to better focus on the needs of corporate clients. The new name "gPatent" emphasizes the ease of generation of patents from silicon and software using a Patent Agent that is a former Design Engineer in the Semiconductor Industry.
The gears in the gPatent logo envision the "cranking out" of patents from readily-available engineering documents, such as silicon schematics and software pseudo-code.
Rather than burdening the inventors with long write-ups, such engineering schematics or code is often sufficient as a disclosure. Many times only a few paragraphs in an email are sufficient to start the patent when already-available schematics or pseudo-code is attached. Many of my patents are generated from minimal disclosures from inventors, allowing engineers to focus on their design work, rather than the legal formalities of patents.
Operating as an LLC may reduce the paperwork required of my clients' accounting departments. Tax reporting may also be simplified.
My website is now at www.gpatent.com
while my email address is still
gPatent is now able to offer notarization of patent assignments at your office during my office visits. My wife, Lillian, has passed the California Notary-Public exam and can notarize your assignments when I visit your office. This convenient service is billed at standard notary fees of $10 per signature plus $40 per trip, and appears as line items on your patent invoice from gPatent.
Patent Talk in
It was my pleasure to give the
talk "What is Patentable ?" to engineers at the Hong Kong
office of Pericom, at the new
This talk considers examples of patents in your technical field to answer the question of what ideas are candidates for patents. The talk not only increases general awareness of patents to the engineering staff, but helps engineers to recognize specifically when their work might be patentable.
Patent License Deal Doubles Stock Price Overnight !
The stock of NeoMagic of Santa Clara recently rose 130% in just one day after a patent license deal with Sony was announced in the quarterly report. The 8.5 M$ patent deal was the second in the year for NeoMagic, after an earlier deal to sell about 50 patents for 4.5 M$ to a company that specializes in patent licensing.
NeoMagic is a pioneer in graphics for laptop and portable devices and aggressively patented their ideas. NeoMagic still holds about 20 patents for core technologies outside of these deals.
Web Shopping Patent Sold to CNET
It's not just companies such as NeoMagic that are benefiting from patents. A solo inventor, David Ng, recently sold his ratings & rewards web-shopping patent to CNet Networks of San Francisco for an undisclosed sum.
The patent, # 6,405,175 was issued in 2002 and is titled "Shopping Scouts Web Site for Rewarding Customer Feedback on Product and Price Information with Rewards Scaled by the Number of Shoppers Using the Information". This was the patent of the year appearing in this newsletter in January 2003. Congratulations David !
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Discover The Patent AGENT Advantage... Effective – 270 Patents Issued
Engineers spend less time explaining inventions to another engineer |
Patent Applications Top 400,000 for First Time
The US Patent office reported that it received a record number of patent applications in its 2005 Fiscal Year. Over 406,000 patent applications were received. This is up by more than 30% from just 3 years ago, when patent filings reached 300,000 in a year.
However, only 165,000 patents were issued during the last year. This is down from the 180,000 patents that were issued in 2002.
There are some reports on the internet that allowance rates have fallen. One report is that the allowance rate is down to 61%. Other firms are reporting a substantial reduction in allowances for their applications. There are even reports that some art units (technologies) within the patent office are simply refusing to allow any new applications.
One technology that I have seen such trouble with is travel-related web services. Of three cases I filed, two have been allowed, but only after almost 5 years of arguing the case. We have had to reply to six office actions in one case (1 or 2 office actions is typical in most technologies) and have had to start over as examiners quit. Another case had claims allowed, only to have the examiner leave and another examiner reverse the claim allowance and reject everything.
Patent Backlog Expands
The increase in patent filings has also increased the number of patent applications pending in the Patent Office. It was hoped that electronic filing and image-based workflow within the office would increase productivity.
Unfortunately, it appears that less than 10% of the patent filings are electronic, with most law firms preferring to photocopy papers and file by mail. The Patent Commissioner at a July meeting I attended was frustrated and had basically given up on reducing the backlog by hiring more examiners.
A particular frustration for the Patent Chief was companies that have gone out of business, but still got their patents examined.
Link to Featured Patent of
the Year:
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06972881__
6972881:
Micro-electro-mechanical switch (MEMS) display panel with on-glass column
multiplexers using MEMS as mux elements
Easy-to-Remember Gmail Address:
Gpatent @ Gmail.com
270 Patents Issued
After 12 years of writing patents as a full-time Patent Agent, 270 applications that I've written have now issued as patents. Congratulations inventors!
You can view the 270 issued patents I’ve written at:
www.gpatent.com
Rates Set for 2006
My hourly rate for 2006 will be $190 per hour, billed in quarter-hour increments. Fixed-price quotes are available for patent applications to facilitate budgeting and avoid expensive surprises.
Prosecution work such as amendments and other paperwork is billed at the hourly rate. Litigation-support work is billed at a higher rate.
Patent searches are billed at a flat $500 for
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Stuart T. Auvinen
(831) 476-5506 (831) 477-0703 (FAX) Gpatent@Gmail.com StuaPatent@aol.com
© 2005 Stuart T. Auvinen,
all rights reserved. The views expressed are
solely those of the author and do not represent legal advice. Stuart Auvinen is a Patent Agent registered with the U.S. Patent Office (Reg. No. 36,435). He is a former IC design engineer who writes patents for high-tech companies. |
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Stuart T. Auvinen Patent Agent Address Correction Requested |
