Wade Sun the inventor of the Disc Eraser TM continues to share the lessons he learned as he went through the process of developing his invention, (Copyright 2006 SunZag Creative Products. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission from the author):
“The next step: designing my product/final prototype. When you design a product, you need to weigh the factors of material cost vs. functionality vs. size vs. safety vs. appearance, among many other things. To beat out the shredders and the hand-held CD scraping devices, I wanted my device to be compact, portable, and small enough to fit inside my pocket. Smaller is better, for inventory and shipping purposes, and being compact and lightweight is a definite plus. Looking at my first prototype, I determined that I could make my final prototype even smaller without compromising the stability. For added safety, instead of a retractable blade design, I thought about making a hinged base plate that opened in similar fashion as the paper trimmer, with the CD alignment stubs on the inside surface. In terms of engineering and manufacturing, a retractable blade would complicate my product’s development as well as increase production costs.
RULE #8 KEEP YOUR DESIGNS SIMPLE. I reasoned that the blade did not protrude out much from the slider because the distance from the CD surface would be very close. Besides, with my hinged plate design, the blade would not be exposed during operation. So there would be no need for a retractable blade mechanism.
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Google has introduced Google Patent Search, a service that makes it easy to search the USPTO’s 7 million patents. Its based on the same technology they use in their book searches. if you are looking for documentation on a specific patent you can search for them here.
Google Patent Search makes it easy to find your own patent as well as famous patents which have lead to products that have changed our daily lives like Apple’s iPod, Google’s PageRankTM or Bluetooth. You can search by title, patent number and by keywords found the in the Patent Filing.
From the Google Blog:
It’s a natural extension of our mission to make this public domain government information more easily accessible using Google’s search technology. We’re pleased to have started with over 7 million patents granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and look forward to expanding our coverage over time.
You can search by patent number, patent title, or inventor’s name. We decided to give Google’s Patent Search a try. Here are a few patents we found using information from the patent web pages on shop4patents.com.
Q: I am looking to start my own clothing line. Do I need to patent the logo and brand name? How do I do that?
A: You cannot patent a logo or brand name. To protect a logo or band name you need a trademark. To file a trademark application you should contact a registered patent attorney or an attorney with experience in filing trademark applications.
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Q: I am starting a business making home made, hand milled
soap, liquid soap from olive oil as well as lotions and lip balm.
On my labels that I make myself I use a stamp of a windmill that
I purchased at a hobby store. Is there a legal problem with this?
If so please let me know.
A: If the windmill is a generic looking windmill with no artistic merit
then it should be in the public domain. If you have any questions you
should contact the manufacture to see if they have or claims any
rights to the figure.
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Q: Where can I get an application to patent an invention?
A: There is not an application that you can just fill out to obtain a patent on an invention. To see what a patent application looks like you can go to the United States Patent and Trademark Office web site
www.uspto.gov and view both issued patents and published patent applications.
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