The Constitution of the United States gives Congress the power to enact laws relating to patents, in Article I, section 8, which reads “Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” Under this power Congress has from time to time enacted various laws relating to patents.http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/index.html#patent
Now, read this again... "to promote the progress of science and useful arts". Got it? Cool. Now consider patent #6644498. According to the Summary, this patent is for, "The present invention is a continuous strip of ring blanks that can be torn from the continuous strip and formed into napkin rings." Yes kids, its a patent to protect the inventor of paper napkin rings! Seriously! OK, its more technical but I have in my hand one paper napkin ring. Its a strip of paper with adhesive on it. Somehow it would seem to Simply Skully that this fails both the "unique" and "non-obvious" tests but that's probably because I am not sufficiently enlightened as to the sheer brilliance of said invention.
According to Skully's brief perusal of the Internet, one can apply for a patent for as little as $500 but the average cost to receive a patent is between $5000 and $10,000. Clearly a bargain if your goal is to protect the intellectual property brilliance of, well, say, "paper napkin rings on a roll".
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1 comment:
think about how much the inventor of that adhesive napkin ring is making next time you go to a restaurant. I mean, you know, not them classy places with the cloth napkins, but the regular people places with the silverware and napkin wrapped up in a piece of paper with adhesive. I wish I had that patent!
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