A Board Certified Patent Attorney
Posts Tagged ‘patent’
Will This Amazing Underwater Hotel Actually Happen in Florida?
In the near future, could we be staying in a deep-sea hotel leagues below the surface? The developers behind Planet Ocean Underwater Hotel certainly hope so. The Florida-based project aims to become the first “self-contained affordable mini-luxury underwater hotel” in the world. Underwater hotels are nothing new. In Key Largo, Florida, a converted underwater research facility 21 feet below the water’s surface, the Jules Undersea Lodge, offers a unique ecotourism opportunity. The Hydropolis in Dubai is currently under construction and is an estimated $550 million luxury resort situated 66 feet below the surface. The difference between these projects and the Planet Ocean Underwater Hotel is affordability and feasible architectural design. The concept behind the Planet Ocean Underwater Hotel is that prefabricated
Patent Writing Secrets: What’s the Hook?
Before beginning to draft the patent application there is one step you must take to make sure you get MAXIMUM protection for your idea (and to make sure no one gets around it). And that step is establishing the hook. Allow me to explain what a hook is with a rather famous example in patent circles. Years ago a man caught a rather tragic news story. A woman had died from carbon monoxide poisoning while trapped in her garage. The story goes the woman drove into her garage and shut the door behind her BEFORE shutting off her car (this was up north, in the winter, where people normally do these things). By some series of events the woman fell out of her car before she was able to shut the engine off. Trapped on the ground unable to open the garage door or turn off her car, the woman suffocated to death. Now this is where the story gets […]<
Inventor Celebrated by World’s Largest Search Engine
On April 24, Google celebrated the birthday of Gideon Sundback, considered the genius behind the zippers most people use today. The search engine is commemorating the occasion with a large, interactive zipper in place of its usual logo. In 1917 Sundback patented the "Separable Fastener". It is important to note that Sundback did NOT invent the zipper. That honor goes to, first, Elias Howe (who patented the "Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure") and then Whitcomb Judson who created the "Clasp Locker", the precursor to the device we use today. However, neither device gained popularity. And that is the main reason why Sundback is getting all this attention. His improvements to the zipper made it both easy to use AND marketable. He didn’t invent the thing…but he did make is so darned easy
Cool Patent of the Month – Creepy Crawlies on Your Skin
Imagine if every time someone called you, your skin vibrated. Sound kind of weird? Well, that’s exactly what Nokia is planning to do with a new piece of patent pending technology called “Haptic Communication”. What is this new patent application about? The technology looks fairly simple. It’s just a piece of fabric that “vibrates” according to the strength of a magnetic field. What’s interesting though is that this fabric is attached to your skin. The unusual use is pairing this to a cell phone, so that you – and only you – will be able to know when it rings. I’m sure they’ve got other uses in mind. Imagine a battle zone full of soldiers equipped with multiple patches. Buzz the one on the right arm and the whole platoon heads right. Activate the one on the l
Patent Success or Failure Hinges on This…
I am often asked this question: "Should an Inventor build on his Strengths or try to overcome his Personal Weakness?" Well, I recently had to choose between the two. Like many people with a career that involves long periods of sitting behind a desk, I struggled with my weight. I’ve never enjoyed exercise, but luckily I do not have a sweet tooth either. To tackle this problem I chose to “build on my strength.” Instead of forcing myself to workout to get back into shape, I decided to eat healthier and eat less. Since then I’ve lost over twenty pounds. All of my significant success has come from situations where I ignored my weaknesses and maximized my strengths. On the other hand, my greatest failures have come from times I had to rely on my weaknesses and my strengths did not factor into the eq
Patented 120 years ago: The electric tattoo machine
If you are an inventor with tattoos, you must read this… I just tripped upon this interesting little story about the patent behind the electric tattoo machine. Seems this tool was based on an engraving machine invented by Thomas Edison. It just goes to show how you can take an invention that is already out there…add a little twist of your own…and come up with an entirely new patent. Click the link for the full story: http://reason.com/blog/2011/12/08/got-a-tattoo-say-thanks-to-the-electric