Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone, I’m J.D. Houvener, the host of the Bold Today Show, where you, the inventor and entrepreneur, get your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place. Happy Monday and welcome to a new five-part series. This is the first day we’re talking about flying animals. For all five days, we’re going to talk about all the different flying animals that I found and researched, and that I think you’ll enjoy.
Today, we’re going to talk about the first flying animal, inspired by my drive into work just last week. My wife and I carpool together, and so we took this image right here (trust me, I did not take it while I was driving, but my wife did). We looked up and were amazed, just in awe at this sight of these ducks (we think they were ducks, maybe geese) that were flying North, maybe due to the night and the warming temperatures. You know, spring’s on the way. The formation – I mean, this beautiful arrow, there were sets of arrows and this V-formation, I think you can see it right here. It’s amazing how they’re working together as a team to make such a long flight, and they’re all relying on one another.
So, it inspired me to think about working together with my wife better. And so, that’s your challenge today: look around your organization, you know, look up the chain, look down, even look at your family, and think about what’s one way that we can work better together, alright? What’s a way you can pitch in and maybe take the lead, and then share that relationship and let someone else take lead for a while, and so you all can kind of take a shot at working together as a better organization.
Alright, so today we’re going to take a look at a duck patent. I had to dig hard for this one. It was patented in 1957, and I know we were just talking about the beautiful nature of the duck. This is a duck decoy, alright? So, this is probably used for duck hunting, and this decoy is a utility patent, and its main functionality is that it could move. It would simulate a real duck and hopefully attract other ducks. So, the not-so-smart ducks would come in and land next to this decoy, and, you know, the hunter is able to fire away at the duck that comes next to the duck decoy. So, I want to focus on the drawings here today from the patent law point of view.
Under 37 CFR 1.53 B, it is required to show drawings whenever you make reference to drawings in the specification. So, a really cool image here, figure 1. You’ll see there’s a picture on the left, which is the duck decoy, the patented invention from the top view, and the image to the right is this complex-looking gadget with mechanics. It’s hard to tell what this is at first glance if you don’t really know what you’re looking for. So, I want you to look at the vertical line cutting through on the left side. You can see the number 2 with the arrow is going to the left, pointing to a line on that image of the duck from the top. That’s the point where it’s going to be a cut-in-view drawing, and so that’s exactly what the image on the right is. The figure is cut for you so that you can see what’s inside of the duck – how the gears turn, how the mechanics are working, where the batteries connected. That’s actually required, as I said, to show those different components because they are being claimed under this invention.
So, whether we’re inventing new types of ducks, coming up with different innovations, it’s part of a team. No inventor has done it alone. No entrepreneur has made it big on their own. You’ve got to work together. So, please share this video with someone that could use a little inspiration in that regard and learn a little bit about patent drawings as well. Thanks for tuning in to the Bold Today Show. Hope you all have a wonderful day. Go big, go bold.
At boldip.com.