Patent Attorney and Founder
Hi everyone, I’m J.D. Houvener, your host of the Bold Today’s Show. For you, the inventor and entrepreneur, business owner, get your daily dose of inspiration to make the world a better place. All right, we’re in part four of our part 5 on design applications for rainy weather. This is springtime, and you better believe it when you’re in the car and driving, what do you rely on to keep yourself stable? Your car tires. Okay, so we’re talking about the tire tread itself. Believe it or not, the tread, while certainly functional to keep you on the road, the design of the tread is protected under the U.S. design patents.
Before we get there, I have a Bold challenge for you. We’ve been talking about this umbrella, right? And yesterday we talked about this interesting design, the solar-powered umbrella. Right, you talked about that. So the question for you is, when was the first umbrella invented? But the person that has the closest guess will be able to get a 10% discount on the next Bold patent product.
All right, so we’re back to tire treads, and that was just a little teaser because what I’ve got shown up here for you is the latest tire tread put out by a Japanese company. And what they’ve done is they filed, as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, they filed a Hague design international application back in 2016, and it moved through quite quickly. In just a matter of two years, in January 2018 this year, it was patented in the U.S. So filed in Japan 2016, filed and granted in the U.S. in 2018. Very quick procedure for someone who’s got internationally applicable design patent applications.
Figure 1.8 is a zoom-in on the tire tread itself. It doesn’t look all that fancy, but what you’ve got to look at are part of the different intricacies, the little cuts in the rubber, and all the little channels that likely form functional aspects on how to move water. Well, this does not, of course, protect the way it goes through the ground, the way it has better traction, but simply the way that it appears is preventing anyone else in the market from using designs that are similar to this.
So without further ado, we’re going to move on to the next subject. Tomorrow we’re going to talk about how to keep yourself dry under any weather condition and avoid getting your face wet. If you’ve got more questions about patent law or have any questions about how to get started, have a new design inspiration, please give us a call. Visit our website at boldip.com. We’d love to hear from you. We always offer a free 30-minute consultation. I’m your host, J.D. Houvener, of the Bold Today’s Show. Go big, go bold.