Patent Attorney and Founder
When I’m J.D. Houvener, host of the Bold Today’s Show, for you, the inventor, entrepreneur, or business owner, get your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place. Hey, we’re in part three talking about intellectual property and celebrating the FIFA World right now. And this is our second week of that – it’s an exciting time. Check it out if you haven’t already, cheer on your favorite team, and see how things are going in the tournament.
Today, we’re talking about patent law. On Monday, we talked about trademarks; yesterday, it was copyrights. Today, it’s patent law. Well, we talk about patents all day long every day. We come with really goofy examples – flying animals to fireworks and all kinds of different things, right? This is the time that I want to take with you to make sure we understand the basics of patent law.
So, in patent law, it comes down to an inventor and the government. The United States Patent and Trademark Office, which is an extension of the delegation of Congress – they’ve given the administration of the USPTO the power to give exclusive rights, meaning the inventor is the only one in the entire country that’s able to make, use, sell, import, and invent in the US. Now, you get that.
Well, the inventor has got to prove that it’s a novel, truly novel invention that’s not obvious based on other items and references that are in the prior art. And it has utility – some now, the button beyond that’s opal entertaining, provide some value to the public. One thing that has done that and convinced the Patent Office and the examiner particularly that they’re worthy of it, the patent is granted. It’s not granted for us. Right, there’s this exclusivity is limited to twenty years. Twenty years from the date of filing that patent application, there is only going to be able to do this. One forever after a 20-year mark, it’s now open to the public. Anyone in the public can use, make, sell, or import that product. The whole idea is so that we all slowly become smarter and by virtue of the inventor telling the world what they’ve created, the government says thank you very much. We’re willing to actually give you this granted patent and on top of that providing a mechanism for you to go sue anyone in federal court that may be infringing your patent rights. That’s patent law in a nutshell and hope this is anything for you with the patents, you know, that’s week and this week and we’ll talk a little bit about, you know, tales of these later on this week to about examples of patents and so for soccer, there are plenty of patents out there, including, of course, the ball itself. But don’t forget, there’s patents on methods and processes which include play and ways that soccer and sports and training for soccer can occur. So, methods of training is a unique way to think about protecting in the in of soccer. So, patents are all around you if you think about it in terms of the methods and processes, the apparatuses that are used to train the equipment, the medical training, all the devices, pharmaceuticals. It’s interesting.
Well, I’m J.D. Houvener of the Bold Today’s Show. I hope y’all had a wonderful day, and thanks for tuning in. Go big, go bold.