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A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention. In most countries, patent rights fall under private law and the patent holder must sue someone infringing the patent in order to enforce their rights. In some industries patents are an essential form of competitive advantage; in others they are irrelevant.
An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition or process. The invention process is a process within an overall engineering and product development process. It may be an improvement upon a machine or product or a new process for creating an object or a result. An invention that achieves a completely unique function or result may be a radical breakthrough. Such works are novel and not obvious to others skilled in the same field. An inventor may be taking a big step toward success or failure.
A workbench is a sturdy table at which manual work is done. They range from simple flat surfaces to very complex designs that may be considered tools in themselves. Workbenches vary in size from tiny jewellers benches to the huge benches used by staircase makers. Almost all workbenches are rectangular in shape, often using the surface, corners and edges as flat/square and dimension standards. Design is as varied as the type of work for which the benches are used but most share these attributes:
Jerome "Jerry" Hal Lemelson was an American engineer, inventor, and patent holder. Several of his inventions and works in the fields in which he patented have made possible, either wholly or in part, innovations like automated warehouses, industrial robots, cordless telephones, fax machines, videocassette recorders, camcorders, and the magnetic tape drive used in Sony's Walkman tape players. Lemelson's 605 patents made him one of the most prolific inventors in American history.
Gordon Gould was an American physicist who is sometimes credited with the invention of the laser and the optical amplifier.. Gould is best known for his thirty-year fight with the United States Patent and Trademark Office to obtain patents for the laser and related technologies. He also fought with laser manufacturers in court battles to enforce the patents he subsequently did obtain.
Deckers Outdoor Corporation, doing business as Deckers Brands, is a footwear designer and distributor based in Goleta, California, United States. It was founded in 1973 by University of California, Santa Barbara alumni Doug Otto and Karl F. Lopker. In 1975, the company was incorporated in California under the name Deckers Corporation. In October 1993, Deckers initiated a public offering of stock in its company.
In patent law, an inventor is the person, or persons in United States patent law, who contribute to the claims of a patentable invention. In some patent law frameworks, however, such as in the European Patent Convention (EPC) and its case law, no explicit, accurate definition of who exactly is an inventor is provided. The definition may slightly vary from one European country to another. Inventorship is generally not considered to be a patentability criterion under European patent law.
Artur Fischer was a German inventor. He is best known for inventing the plastic expanding wall plug.
Walter Hunt was an American mechanical engineer. Through the course of his work he became known for being a prolific inventor. He got first involved with mechanical innovations in a linseed producing community in New York state that had flax mills. While in New York City to promote his inventions he got involved in inventing the streetcar gong that is used throughout the United States. This then led him to invent other useful items like the safety pin and sewing machine. He invented the precursor to the repeating rifle and fountain pen. About two dozen of his inventions are used today in basically the same form as he had patented it. In spite of his many useful innovative creations he never became wealthy since he sold off most of his patent rights to others at low prices with no future royalties. Others made millions of dollars from his safety pin device.
Inventions and Their Management is a science book by Alf K. Berle and L. Sprague de Camp. It was based on A Course on Inventing and Patenting by Howard Wilcox and Alf K. Berle, a series of nine papers presented by New York University in cooperation with Inventors Foundation, Inc., issued from 1933-1934. The Berle/de Camp version was published by the International Textbook Company in July 1937. It was reprinted, revised, in September 1940. A second edition was issued by the same publisher in April 1947 and was reprinted, revised, in January 1948, with a third printing in June 1948 and a fourth in June 1950. A third edition was issued by the same publisher in November 1951 and was reprinted, revised, in 1954. An additional printing was issued by Laurel Publishing in 1957. The work was revised and reissued under the new title Inventions, Patents, and Their Management by Van Nostrand in 1959. It was reprinted by Litton Educational publishers in 1968. The work has been translated into Japanese.
Otis Frank Boykin was an American inventor and engineer. His inventions include electrical resistors used in computing, missile guidance, and pacemakers.
Earle Haas, D.O. (1888–1981) was an osteopathic physician and inventor of the tampon with an applicator, marketed as "Tampax". He graduated from the Kansas City College of Osteopathy in 1918 and spent 10 years in Colorado as a country general practitioner, then went to Denver in 1928.
Shop right, in United States patent law, is an implied license under which a firm may use a patented invention, invented by an employee who was working within the scope of their employment, using the firms' equipment, or inventing at the firms' expense. Even if the employee never assigned rights to the firm, a court of law may find that the firm has the right to make use of the invention, and thus can not be sued by the employee for patent infringement. This will allow the firm to attempt to capitalize on the value of the patent, as the firm is allowed to use the object of the patent in the routine operation of its business without royalty payments. Shop right is non-transferable. It only inures to the benefit of the employer and can not be sold by that employer to an unrelated party, except in a sale of the business as a whole.
Michael Joseph Owens was an inventor of machines to automate the production of glass bottles.
Ronald Price Hickman (1932–2011) was a South African-born, Jersey-based automobile designer and inventor. He worked for both the Ford motor company and Lotus, where he designed the original Lotus Elan, the Lotus Elan +2 and the Lotus Europa. However, he is best known for his design of a wood-working bench called the Black & Decker Workmate.
The Leahy–Smith America Invents Act (AIA) is a United States federal statute that was passed by Congress and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on September 16, 2011. The law represents the most significant legislative change to the U.S. patent system since the Patent Act of 1952 and closely resembles previously proposed legislation in the Senate in its previous session.
Stanford University v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., 563 U.S. 776 (2011), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that title in a patented invention vests first in the inventor, even if the inventor is a researcher at a federally funded lab subject to the 1980 Bayh–Dole Act. The judges affirmed the common understanding of U.S. constitutional law that inventors originally own inventions they make, and contractual obligations to assign those rights to third parties are secondary.
The Black & Decker Workmate is a general purpose portable workbench and general carpentry tool manufactured under the brand Black & Decker. It is a folding table for portability, but when unfolded stands about 3 feet (1 m) tall. The table top consists of two wooden jaws, one of which is fixed and the other moveable on threaded rods operated by handles. It can be used as a bench vice to hold wood, metal and other parts, either clamped between the jaws or, using supplied bench dogs, clamped on the table top. The jaws are wide enough to hold most bench top tools, such as a drill press, planer, miter saw, etc.
Ellen Elgin was an American scientist and inventor.
References
- 1 2 3 Edward Robinson "They Saved Small Business When corporate America tried to seize the patent system from independent inventors, this Boston couple came to the rescue." Fortune Small Business, April 1, 2000
- ↑ "In praise of… the Workmate". The Guardian. 22 February 2011. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
- ↑ The Guardian newspaper: Alfredo Moser: Bottle light inventor proud to be poor, 13 August 2013