 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ghuba
Date: 2006-12-14 20:19
The new beta search engine for patents in Google is pretty effective in finding clarinet patents of possible historical interest.
www.google.com/patents
As an example, try searching on "Mazzeo clarinet."
This search engine is much easier to use than that provided on the web site of the US Patent Office.
George
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2006-12-14 21:40
A good-appearing patent search engine/method. I found an number of useful "tricks" in partic. the reporting of the "Referenced By" [later] pats. As an "old-timer" from searching "shoes" of pats in the old Commerce Bldg, to highly-sophisticated chemical pat/computer/logic searching, my quickie opinion is that it will be suitable for some searchers , but I'll not abandon the differences/advantages of good-ole USPTO, such as class/subclass searching. Am trying to be "open-minded" but "resistance to change" is one of our many curses. 'Nuff for today. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: ghuba
Date: 2006-12-14 22:24
Don, I agree that the USPO search methods are more complex and probably can help a professional patent researcher find the "hard-to-find" stuff. But the first time I used USPO a year ago to find the major clarinet patents related to throat Bb correction designs -- Leblanc, Mazzeo, Stubbins -- it took 15-30 minutes for me to find and print each (after also paying for each download and dealing with a quirky payment basket system). These Google searches take 15 seconds and you can have the patent printed in another 30 seconds. Maybe not as powerful, but extremely useful for somebody who does not search patents for a living.
GBK, I am curious to see how many more folks use these patent searches to see how some of the clarinet innovations were original proposed by their inventors. I found your comments quite interesting.
George
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2006-12-15 01:48
Hi George - I've tried a bit of exploratory pat searching, with the link [firmly] in my "Favorite Places" list, and it is remarkable !! It must be "full text" indexing/searching/retrieving at nearly instantaneous speed. I wondered if inventor and assignee names [by themselves] were searchable, and yes, they are. I found my own, my Jr son's and a few more [via "false drop"] patents. I'll try classification searching tomorrow, and see if it responds to the logic operators, AND & OR, as the USPTO does, for more precise retrieval. It sure would be great if G could do the same for some foreign [European, World and Japan] countries. Retrieval of pre 1976 so far is much easier/faster than USPTO. New , different, ?patentable?, revolutionary ! Many TKS, Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-12-15 15:54
The advantage of the PTO's system is that it allows for dealing with prior art, something that people just interested in seeing what a clarinet patent is all about just do not need.
My patent
(located here:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=4796507.PN.&OS=PN/4796507&RS=PN/4796507)
dealt with a number of "prior art" issues with other clarinet ligatures; all have to be addressed in the application and "proof" offered as to how the new claims differ. However, use of an element or concept in another, completely unrelated field still counts as prior art, and such a use would make that same element or concept unpatentable when relating to something like a clarinet.
So, my ligature, which is more or less the application of a two sided hook and loop fastener to a conical or cylindrical instrument mouthpiece so that the "loop" side can be compressed against the reed, had not only to be proven "novel" (a patent office term of the first order) in the clarinet field, but also in all other fields as well.
With the Google system, you'd get those patents that you know to look for. But, when doing a search for "prior art", you'd only get out of Google what you put into it.
With the PTO system, you search based upon the concepts involved. So, my search for my ligature returned not only all of the similar ligatures patented over the years (basically the ones that offered the "string-like" facility that mine has), but also such esoteric stuff as a method of attaching insulation to oil pipelines. You ain't gonna get that with Google, no way no how.
A patent search is not something for the casual interest person. You can do them "manually", as Don refers to in his comment about working through the "shoes" (the filing drawers where the original materials are maintained), or you can do them through microfilm, this at a Patent Depository (usually a large public or university library).
For both types the starting point is a classification search, which will return the numbers of all patents in related fields. You then need to review each of these manually (which is not fun with microfilm, I can tell you from experience), sort out the obvious prior art that might apply, and then write your application and claims accordingly.
Most people use patent attorneys to do this, but I managed to obtain mine pro se (without the benefit of attorney) through diligent research, and a hell of a lot of reading. It's an education in itself, although not one that most are willing to undergo.
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2006-12-15 19:45
A tip-of-the-hat and my congrats. Terry, on your successful efforts in achieving the above ! I'll bet it was an occasionally-trying 2 years + experience, in a somewhat crowded "field" [see the examiner's art cited in Sullivan's pats]. I and a few other inventors also "wrote" some of our own pat. specification-applications [leaving to the claim language to the pat attys], ah, the good ole days of yore !! For those interested in both the Ref's Cited [backward search] and where this pat is cited in a newer inventions [forward search], to make a "state of art" search [beginning !], the availability of the [target] pat # is the "key". Making subject matter [perhaps classification] and/or inventor/assignee searches may require much reading, IMHExperience. Will try Google as well as USPTO, TKS, ghuba. Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Terry Stibal
Date: 2006-12-16 20:22
Oddly enough, I only had one office action subsequent to the filing of the application. However, I did take the precaution of calling and speaking to the actual patent examiner Ben Buller (which was allowed, at least at that time (1980's), and five minutes of conversation with him cleared up a whole bunch of issues.
Those who have not worked through the process don't understand the precision involved, particularly when you consider that the actual patent claims have to describe your novel invention in words alone. (Drawings are required, but the meat of the application lies in the written claims.) This is not as simple as you might assume that it is on first consideration.
In my case, I had the peculiar problem of describing (without recourse to drawings or diagrams) the concept of a helical arrangement of a straight object that was formed around a cone. On its face, this doesn't seem too complicated, but just try and describe (using words only) what a helix "does', and you'll gain a whole new appreciation of the English language that you didn't have prior to your attempt.
When we home-schooled our son (who was playing junior level, semi-pro hockey at the time) for a year, one of the assignments was to write a patent application and associated claims for an invention that he came up with on his own. The search alone was worth the effort, and the narrative and claim writing process sets the capstone on the effort. Too bad that his invention is something that cannot be discussed in polite company (or on this bulletin board)...
leader of Houston's Sounds Of The South Dance Orchestra
info@sotsdo.com
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The Clarinet Pages
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