wrote in message
oups.com...
Apparently, these days you can patent anything your assigned examiner
has never bought from The Sharper Image! I'm serious, it's just awful.
They hand patents out like candy now and let the lawyers figure it out
in court.

Doug

The reason why every one and their brother seems to have a patent on
something has to do with some recent changes in the patent law. Don't fool
yourself that all these are real patents because most of them are called
"provisional" patents. You can get a provisional patent on anything. All
it does is protects your claim by date, and a few other details like you can
try to market it without "patent pending". A provisional patent is not a
patent pending because you are only protected for 1 year, then you have to
go through the standard patent process. That's where the money pit starts.
The real cost of getting a patent is the search for "prior art" and the odds
are if it is anywhere near ( and what isn't?) something then the examiner
denies it ... then you go back with your lawyer and try to tell him why it's
different ..and on and on.
I have 5 patents and know a little about what you can patent and what you
can't. You can't patent something that is an "obvious" use of something
already patented. The idea must be unique, not a simple deviation of a
standard practice.

98% of all patents never make a dime for the inventor