61–70 of 148 posts
Those shoes were actually great: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5588227
The majority [1] of patents are never commercially exploited or licensed - I wanted a way to browse recently expired patents to find hidden gems and get inspired by existing inventions. The site uses the recently released USPTO-API [2] to fetch newly expired patents each day. NB: The reason the most recent patents displayed are from 12/31 is because no new patents were granted during the first few days of January 199…
- If you build and sell a product based on one of these, you don't have to worry about getting sued? (but at the same time you have no protection against cheap clones of your product either?)
Is it just me (it's not) or are 80% of these fairly trivial? Patents don't make sense when you think about it.
I thought the same. It's interesting that this kind of comment gets downvoted without explanation. Is there some kind of culture on HN that implicitly forbids us to voice criticism?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the same. It's interesting that this kind of comment gets downvoted without explanation. Is there some kind of culture on HN that implicitly forbids us to voice criticism?
They seem trivial now, 20 some odd years after the fact.
Is it just me (it's not) or are 80% of these fairly trivial? Patents don't make sense when you think about it.
The thing about a lot of inventions is that they do sometimes look "trivial" after the fact; in other words, things look really simple once its been done! Most inventions (and patents reflect this) are actually small improvements to certain parts of other inventions, which improve the system in such a manner as to be considered a patentable item of their own. As such, they tend to be small things, which when you look…
Am I supposed to make my design worse just because other people thought of these things first?
Awesome site, this is the best one today. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5588175 Word of warning, privacy services like Privacy Badger and Decentraleyes block the data tables cdn your using so your users using those services see no data at all
The patents expiring today website seems to have a simple view of patent expiry, based on 20 years from publication date. The legal expiry date is more complex, and often much earlier.
The patent owner is required to pay maintenance fees [1]. Google patents shows this information under "Legal Events". In this patent, the owner allowed the patent to lapse after 3 years, but eventually petitioned the office for reinstatement and paid the tolls for the 3rd and 7th years. One might expect that this patent term actually expired 11 years after filing, in 2006.
Some patents are given a patent term adjustment (extension) based on administrative delay not caused by patentee. Other patents have their expiry tied to another patent by terminal disclaimer. The USPTO provides a calculator (Excel spreadsheet, meh) for calculating, and additional explanations. [2]. This patent doesn't appear to be subject to term extension or terminal disclaimer.
This patent's term is more complex because the Uruguay Rounds Agreement Act significantly changed the rules for patent terms, for patents filed after June 7, 1995. This patent falls into one of the exceptions. This is described somewhat in the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure section 2701. [3]
The original website is a very interesting concept. It could be even more interesting by incorporating more rules about patent expiry, allowing filters on patents allowed to go expired, patents that were revived, and so on. It would require incorporating additional information from the USPTO Public Pair database.
[1] https://www.uspto.gov/patents-maintaining-patent/maintain-yo...
[2]https://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/patent-ter...
The majority [1] of patents are never commercially exploited or licensed - I wanted a way to browse recently expired patents to find hidden gems and get inspired by existing inventions. The site uses the recently released USPTO-API [2] to fetch newly expired patents each day. NB: The reason the most recent patents displayed are from 12/31 is because no new patents were granted during the first few days of January 199…
- So no one can re-patent the expired patents? - If you build and sell a product based on one of these, you don't have to worry about getting sued? (but at the same time you have no protection against cheap clones of your product either?)
Correct. To get a new patent, your invention by novel and unobvious. If it has been patented before, it will not be novel when attempting to "re-patent" it. Therefore, re-patenting is not possible.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
- So no one can re-patent the expired patents? - If you build and sell a product based on one of these, you don't have to worry about getting sued? (but at the same time you have no protection against cheap clones of your product either?)
"So no one can re-patent the expired patents?" Correct. To get a new patent, your invention by novel and unobvious. If it has been patented before, it will not be novel when attempting to "re-patent" it. Therefore, re-patenting is not possible.