Author name: Inventors Digest

Ochoa was the first Hispanic female in space, an astronaut on the nine-day Space Shuttle Discovery mission in 1993.

Last month on these pages, we told you about the invention of the umbrella that can be protection from April showers. Now we’ll tell you about May flowers—specifically the beginnings of intellectual property protection for new plants and the emergence of plant patents—to celebrate passage of the U.S. Plant Patent Act of 1930, 92 years ago this month.

Not all inventors and entrepreneurs understand what intellectual property (IP) is, or its essential role in protecting their rights. So the USPTO has initiated a pilot program to ultimately reach people in locations where IP has not traditionally been maximized.

Newly confirmed USPTO Director Kathi Vidal will have many responsibilities. One is the authority to designate panels of at least three administrative patent judges in cases filed with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

In any discussion about Nikola Tesla, the name of his rival—Thomas Edison—is likely to come up.

The USPTO’s new Patent Public Search function, a recently launched, cloud-based platform, is four tools in one. It combines the capabilities of these existing search tools scheduled to be retired in September 2022: Public-Examiner’s Automated Search Tool (PubEAST), Public-Web-based Examiner’s Search Tool (PubWEST), Patent Full-Text and Image Database (PatFT), and Patent Application Full-Text and Image Database (AppFT).

Gathering strongest prior art is key in an AIA trial proceeding  Your issued patent may mean more to you than

Through the centuries, the umbrella morphed into a fashion statement that was also associated with decorum. Rankine wrote that during the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), there was a system of umbrella etiquette at court, much like fan etiquette, with different meanings for different colors and positions.

If a USPTO patent examiner issues a second or final rejection of your invention, you might consider filing an ex parte appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to overturn it. When preparing an appeal brief outlining how you feel the examiner erred, keep in mind some important requirements and best practices. 

Ruth Rogan Benerito was a pioneer in much more than driving safety – her groundbreaking work in textiles included her team’s discovery of wrinkle-resistant cotton.

Born in Lowndes County, Mississippi, in 1857, Baker became a Patent Office employee around 1877. He soon sought to dispel racist claims that his fellow African-Americans could not be inventors. He began a list of such inventors throughout U.S. history.