Patent Attorney and Founder
Everyone I’m JD Houvener your host of the ball today’s show worth you the inventor entrepreneur business owner get your daily inspiration to make the world a better place [Music]
happy Friday everybody and we’re here at the end unfortunately of our 10-part series honoring one of my favorite inventors Lonnie Johnson out of Mobile Alabama he is the owner of over 120 patents as we talked about this whole week and the week prior Super Soaker invention is now part of the the toy Hall of Fame believe it or not and it’s not awesome awesome toy very fun we were diving into each different part of the patent document this these past few weeks today we’re finally at my favorite part which is the heart of every patent and that’s the set of claims right what does the invention what is owned at the end of the day by the inventor or the company that owns the invention when we’re all said and done and so we’ll take a look at is a picture here of claim one claim one is the is to only independent plane within this patent set so mr. Johnson is the inventor of this set of claims there 18 total claims 17 of which are dependent they all depend from claim 1 so you can see a claim 1 is a bit lengthy it’s got different sections of it there’s a few things I want to point out to you within here as you’ll see there’s use very traditional phrasing where they about like the word comprising the word comprising is very important it means that if the invention may include all of the things listed and others right they’re not limiting the invention to only contain for example the word containing reason word comprising you know there’s at least these structural embodiments that make up the invention and so the attorney goes through and as you can see a through app basically are all the different sections of the water gun to identify all the elements and some of the elements the lines of the claim they discuss words like means you know it means for reducing the water flow means for the water reservoir and when they say means it’s a special type of language that refers back to the specification refers back to the detail description and that is where much more detail is given about what types of structure could be used whether that’s a you know a line or whether that’s a mechanical or even a hydraulic component to release that water all they’re claiming is some sort of means to do this function it’s a nice way to actually a broader patent scope and increase the value of the patent overall so the next thing I want to point out to you is the fact that how each of these claims are dependent on one another it’s looking right down there and claim to you can see that it’s it’s the toy gun that’s making a its claim there it says everything under under claim two is gonna be everything including claim one and then some so by this using this language they are including everything that was described in claim one and they’re adding more information so don’t forget that the longer a patent claim the smaller the patent scope okay the more words that have been inserted that means that an infringer you would have to go to show that every single element of that claim is being met in order to prove infringement so it’s a nice short set of claims it’s easier to show infringement a longer set of course it’s going to be harder to show so I hope you have fun looking at this patent with me over the past two weeks has been a blast and again if you have any questions that still linger you’re welcome to look on our website at bull patents con with a link right there for you to self schedule a free 30-minute consultation with one of our patent attorneys and again I invite you to please forward this series or the email on to someone who might be able to benefit from hearing from me a bit of a tidbit about patent law just sort of nudge them along and get them on to the next step of their journey that’d be very very grateful for that so wish y’all have a wonderful weekend and again it’s been great talking with you I’m your host JD Houvener of the bowl today’s show go big go bowl