Industrial IP

I recently had the privilege of attending an educational workshop as part of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network (OEN) Angel Food Conference and Education Series 2019 . The workshop centered on the topic of scaling up businesses in the food and beverage sector. Being a food science graduate and getting to work in food and beverage related patents, I was excited to learn about challenges for food and beverage businesses as they begin to grow. Discussion ranged from production to distribution to financing. No matter the topic, however, one of the central themes was finding partners that are the right fit for the various growth stages of your business. These partners come in many forms, such as mentors, employees, co-packers, distributors, and financial institutions. And these partners can further include intellectual property (IP) counsel. Finding IP counsel that understands your business and how to serve your business as it grows is an invaluable asset. The right IP partners can hel...

My Thanksgivings growing up were potluck-style, my family bringing traditional Persian foods, my aunt’s family bringing traditional Filipino foods, and everyone doing their best imitation on traditional Thanksgiving dishes. I’ve found that using a similar mindset can greatly improve patent drafting and prosecution. Unlike a more traditional patent law firm model where applications in a specific field are drafted by an individual who only works in that field, I’ve been exposed to different approaches with patent technology specialists having diverse backgrounds working with experienced attorneys who practice in a wide range of technologies.  Why can this be advantageous? Patent drafting inevitably requires some amount of learning. Inventions are, by definition, new and anyone other than the inventors is not an expert. Traditional firms might think it is beneficial to assign these inventions only to attorneys and/or agents considered experts in a particular field that seems ...

Have you ever read an article about a new patent, or seen a patent number on a product, and thought to yourself, “You can patent that??”  After nearly eight years in the intellectual property field, I’ve read some patent applications that were real doozies, but rarely do the really “out-of-the-box” ideas make it all the way to being a granted patent.  Consider, for example, napkin folding.  Is napkin folding an area of intellectual property that is hotly sought after?  It turns out, yes it is, as highlighted by three inter partes reviews (IPRs) that were recently entered by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).  In February, the PTAB entered three IPR decisions relating to three patents owned by Essity Hygiene and Health AB and all directed to folded napkins ( 8,597,761 , 8,273,443, and 9,320,372 ).  Did you just ask yourself, “Someone got not one, not two, but three patents to folded napkins?”  Because I did.  But all  joking asi...

Primarily, a patent is used to legally block a competitor from replicating an invention.  Patents have other uncommon uses as I’ve described before.  One example was the Scrub Daddy, who used patents to help secure an investment on Shark Tank and become what is now a $40-million-dollar company, which you can read about here . U.S. Patent No. 9,265,983, Exercise apparatus for assisting in strength exercises , or better known via its commercial name, The Sling Shot, is a resistance band that stretches across the user’s chest as the user is about to do a pressing motion.  The Sling Shot is designed to mitigate a load on the user’s shoulders as the user’s moves out of the fully eccentric position while maintaining proper form.  The Sling Shot is simple in design - the arm cuffs are elastic and the middle connecting portion is relatively inelastic, thereby preventing elbows from flaring out and providing a modicum of assistance in concentric direction.  Its prim...

MasterCraft and Malibu Boats may have finally settled their long-running feud over wake-surfing patents, but there is still a lot of interesting information to be had in looking into the patent cases related to the action. The first aspect to note in the feud is that Malibu Boats did not have just a single patent at issue, but rather Malibu Boats was working on a portfolio. As sophisticated IP players know, the real goods are a well developed patent portfolio as it significantly increases one’s leverage against a competitor. Today we review one aspect of Malibu’s strategy in the case to drive settlement - the idea of a pending application. One might think a pending application is useless as it cannot be asserted in litigation (since the patent has not yet issued). But of course the value in a pending application is not whether it can be asserted immediately, but rather that it has the ability to change and can be asserted at some unknown point in the future. One of Malibu’s pe...

Obesity is an epidemic in many countries, including America, resulting from a lack of exercise and poor diet. Commonly, people are happier when they exercise and eat right, not to mention their vitals (BP, HR, etc.) change to more desirable values. This logic applies to household pets as well; dogs are happier and healthier when sufficiently walked and fed appropriately. Therefore, it is safe to assume that livestock, such as cows, would also be happier when provided with a medium for exercise. However, cows are naturally dormant animals that enjoying grazing and relaxing. Commonly, farmers, whether dairy or cattle, arrange drinking water for the cows far away from their food, thereby forcing the cows to walk. However, this requires a large plot of land that could be utilized in other ways. Large animal veterinarian, Arlan Smith, realized that animal husbandry costs may be reduced by providing a treadmill shaped to accommodate a cow. He claims that a variety of bovine probl...

Image of the Bike Washing Machine  Balance between a patentable idea and market viability can be difficult to navigate.  Market demand may simply not exist for an idea, no matter how novel or ingenious.  On the other hand, simple modifications to well-known ideas can be very lucrative, while narrow in patent scope or not patentable at all. Enter the bike washing machine, which from its name can be one of two things: a washing machine for bikes (akin to a car wash) or a washing machine for clothes combined with a bike.  The bike washing machine is the latter, and features a drum located where a front wheel of a bike would ordinarily be.  The drum comprises water hook ups for admitting and expelling water.  The patent KR 2011/0003822A, can be found here .  Even more interesting, based on the fact that such patents even exist, are the references used during prosecution.  Two patents of interest include a “Combined bodybuilding energy-savin...