Does the Patent Office Care About Inventors?

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On February 20, 2025, Diamond Art Club (“DAC”) sued the USPTO seeking to overturn sanctions imposed by the USPTO because W&K IP LLC, the firm that filed DAC’s application, improperly used the name of a licensed practitioner. Although the USPTO apparently recognized that DAC and practitioner were unaware of W&K’s improper conduct, the USPTO issued the following sanctions:

  • Terminating the proceedings in the application.
  • Precluding submission of any petition to revive the application or any petition to withdraw a holding of abandonment.
  • Precluding submission of an Application Data Sheet or any other paper which includes a claim of benefit to the filing date of this application.
  • Striking from the record all documents containing the signature of the practitioner.

On May 5, 2025, DAC and the USPTO agreed that the USPTO did not have to file an answer, and instead DAC will move for summary judgment. But why is the USPTO so severely punishing innocent inventors and their innocent licensees? How did the USPTO determine these sanctions were appropriate in the first place, and why is the USPTO (apparently) considering defending them? The sanctions are unwarranted against the innocent inventors and their licensee — there is no bad conduct on their part to punish. Nor will the sanctions serve to deter bad conduct since future inventors and assignees are likely to be as innocent as the sanctioned inventors and assignees.

The USPTO was created to discharge the Constitutional mandate of promoting the progress of science and useful arts. Forcibly terminating 3100 applications of potentially innocent inventors and their assignees is not on mission.

June 7, 2025

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June 7 is a was a big day for Thomas A. Edison. On this day in 1892, Edison received a series of six U.S. patents Nos. 476,527, 476,528, 476,529, 476,530, 476,531, and 476,532 for a “System of Electric Lighting,” an “”Incandescent Electric Lamp,” a “System of Electrical Distribution,” an “Incandescent Electric Lamp,” an “Electric-Lighting System,” and an “Ore-Screening Apparatus” respectively.

Nineteen years earlier. on June 7, 1873, Edison received another patent, on a printing telegraph:

June 5, 2025

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On June 5, 1984, Ronald D. Kay received U.S. Patent No. 4,452,364 on a Safety Closure Device for Medicine Container:

Perhaps inspired by the infamous Chicago Tylenol murders just months before he filed his application on February 7, 1983, Kay provided a medicine container that could not be opened without revealing that the container had been tampered with.

Since 1976 more than 8000 U.S. patents have issued on tamper indicating packaging. Necessity is often the mother of invention, although in this case the necessity is sad (and disappointing).

June 2, 2025

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On June 2, 1857, J.E.A. Gibbs received U.S. Patent No. 17,427 on Improvement in Sewing-Machines. This was the first practical single-thread chain-stitching sewing machine. Gibbs received two earlier patents for sewing machines, U.S. Patent No. 16434 and 16914.

June 1, 2025

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On June 1, 1869, Thomas Edison received the first of his 1093 U.S and 2332 total patents. U.S. Patent No. 90,646 on an Electric Vote-Recorder:


The vote recorder was intended for use in legislatures to quickly and accurately record the yea and nay votes of the legislators.

May 15, 2025

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On May 15, 1979, Norman Betros, Jr. received U.S. Patent No. D251,862 on a Round Chessboard or Checkerboard:

Outside of the novelty of the shape, presumably chess would be largely the same, with eight ranks and eight files, although things get curvier toward the edges. Circular chess has been known for centuries, played on a ring-shaped board, which requires a special arrangement of the pieces,

May 10, 2025

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On May 10, 2011, ody Akana, Bartley K. Andre, Daniel J. Coster, Daniele De luliis, Evans Hankey, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Steve Jobs, Duncan Robert Kerr, Shin Nishibori, Matthew Dean Rohrbach, Peter Russell-Clarke, Christopher J. Stringer, Eugene Antony Whang, and Rico Zorkendorfer, received U.S. Patent No. D637596 on a Portable Display Device (the iPad):

April 15, 2025

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On April 15, 1997, U.S. Patent No. 5,621,640, issued to Bertram V. Burke on an Automatic Philanthropic Contribution System:

This was the first of four patents on the idea of rounding up a purchase and contributing the add-on to one or more charities. The others U.S. Patent No. 6,088,682, 6,876,976, and 7171270. They were all assigned to Every Penny Counts, which unsuccessfully tried to assert them against various banks and credit card companies. See, Every Penny Counts, Inc. v. Am. Express Co., 563 F.3d 1378, 90 U.S.P.Q.2d 1851 (Fed. Cir. 2009).

Bertram Burke was a retired psychoanalyst who related his “invention” back to an experience he had buying ice cream: after he paid for an ice cream cone, he was given 52 cents in change and he thought that this small amount of change was practically worthless. He considered putting the change in a canister on the counter ostensibly intended to raise money for a charitable cause, but he did not trust that the money in the canister would actually be devoted to charity. He describes his invention as a way of solving this “problem of loose change.”

The big question on Tax Day is how do you deduct these microdonations?

April 14, 2025

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On April 14, 1914, Stacy Gulick Carkhuff received U.S. Patent No. 1,093,310 on a Vehicle Tire:

Carkhuff’s tire was literally and figuratively non-skid, with raised letters spelling out NON-SKID providing the increased friction that improved traction:

Carkhuff was the Secretary of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company from 1905 to 1943, and a driving force behind its success. His tire design was a brilliant combination of functionality and marketing: