Published Patents

[Professor Thump]

Published Patents

Taken from Sarah Knights Klipschnotes...

For over 60 years, Klipsch has been a technology leader. In fact, we currently have a list of 30 patents associated with Paul W. Klipsch and/or the Klipsch company—with more on the way.

According to Mark Blanchard, many of our patent applications are now published on the U.S. patent and trademark web site, including the balanced armature with acoustic low-pass filter (technology featured on the Custom 2 headphones). While this does not guarantee we will receive approval for the patent, it does mark a time period where we have a level of protection from others infringing on our ideas.

"We have been really aggressive in filing patents as it allows us to continue our technology leader status. A lot of times in the business world, people mark the value of a company by its profit levels and how many patents it has," he said.

However, according to Jim Hunter, applying for a patent is not easy. It is a long process that can be measured in years. Once a "unique" idea is established, it is then up to the Klipsch engineering team to do a patent search. Many times it's discovered that an idea is not so "unique."

"There's the old saying, 'the ancients are stealing our inventions,'" he laughs. "With the millions of patents that are out there, it's really difficult to be the first one to come up with an exclusive design."

When a company deems a design concept unique, a patent attorney typically gets involved. The attorney puts a legal spin on the patent application before it is submitted. Then, the application sits in an examiner cue where it waits to be reviewed. Hunter mentioned that an application may have to be re-filed several times before it gets approved.

In addition to be being a lengthy process, patent applications can be very expensive. According to Hunter, it can cost as much as $20,000, with the majority of the amount going towards legal fees, and that's only if everything goes smoothly.

United States patents are good for 20 years. After that, anyone can utilize the information for free. "A patent is an exchange," said Hunter. "The inventor shows the world how to do something, and the world lets him or her use it exclusively for 20 years."

View our balanced armature with acoustic low-pass filter patent application.
View our oval ear tip patent application.
View our iGroove design patent application.
View our RoomGroove design patent application.
View our XT Horn patent application.

[mikebse2a3]

Interesting info about the patent process, cost and it's pro versus con use Professor Thump.

Thanks,

mike tn

[colterphoto1]

great reading at 3 am. Thanks for the links Prof.!

'plurality of flexible annular flanges' - good stuff mang![8-|]

M

[Edgar]

The patent office is overloaded and understaffed. My most recent patent application was filed in Sept '03, and wasn't approved until about a month ago. That's almost 5½ years, if anyone is counting. And the only reason I managed to keep the costs BELOW $20,000 was because I wrote the application myself.


But obtaining the patent is the easy, inexpensive part! Defending it against a deep-pocketed infringer can be an express trip to the poorhouse. Nowadays, especially for high-tech patents, many companies opt for trade secret protection instead, and hope that somebody else doesn't decide to patent the same invention.


Greg

[WMcD]

There is a lot to it.

The USPTO has been understaffed since day one, from what I can tell.

What you see in an application is mostly the same as what you see in the issued patent. The applicant and patent attorney has to write that. There are complicated legal standards which mesh with the technology.

The most important part of the application and issued patent is the "claims" section. Here someone has to describe the "invention". If you look at this section, you will see that the invention is typically broadly claimed in the first claim and then claimed more narrowly in the successive ones. Sometimes this is done by "dependent" claims. These are in a very arcane and specialized language.

The application is not resubmitted typically. Rather, there are negotiations with the examiner. The examiner may say that what is claimed in the broadest claim has already been disclosed in "the prior art" or is obvious. Then the applicant has to submit a more narrow claim or just rely on the more narrow claims already submitted.

What Hunter says is absolutely true. "The ancients have stolen my invention" in that it has already been disclosed or described somewhere. PWK wrote about this regarding the K-Horn. He thought he had invented the corner horn. This is really to say, no one had done it before. He did not steal the idea or copy someone else's work. But the issue is not independent work, but rather whether it is a non-obvious improvement over what it out there.

Then he ran into the "prior art". Not only was corner placement in the prior art, but also the use of walls as part of the structure.

Once you have the patent, you will have to bring suit against an arguable infringer. The infringer can defend that your invention is "obvious" to one skilled in the art.

Also, just having a patent is not a shield. Another patent holder can argue that your patent is only an improvement upon mine (improvements are patentable), and you are infringer on mine!!

Wm McD