researching patents?

[kelticwizard]

Yes, I went over both to the Great Britain site and the US patent site, and I never found the patent for the Fris Daline. I tried Fris, I tried Daline, I tried Decoupled Anti Resonant Line. Nothing.

Okay, so we have a site for Europe, and a site for America. Anywhere else? How about Canada, Asia, South America and Africa. If a patent is taken out there, doesn't it apply worldwide?

A long time ago, Johnny Carson had a fellow on his show, an American, who was making some waves by inventing what he claimed was a perpetual motion machine. He tried to patent it in many countries, finally succeeded in South Africa, which apparently had freer patent laws. This was before the end of apartheid. I have no idea how that might affect this issue, if indeed it does.

Isn't something patented in South Africa, or anywhere, recognized universally?

[SY]

Isn't something patented in South Africa, or anywhere, recognized universally?

No, not at all. A patent can only be enforced in a country in which it's issued. And enforcing a patent is a horrendously expensive process.

I tried Fris, I tried Daline, I tried Decoupled Anti Resonant Line. Nothing.

Trade names and marketing slogans won't often get you results in a patent search. Try something like "loudspeaker AND transmission AND line AND xxxx", where xxxx is some feature that allows you to narrow down the search from all the other loudspeaker patents. You want to search all the patent text, not just title and abstract. You'll end up slogging through about a bazillion irrelevant patents, but it's cheaper than having a lawyer do it.

[jackinnj]

Originally posted by janneman
Patents are an excellent source for knowledge, and can give you a good view of the "state of the art". A good site (the official one) for the US Patennt and Trademark office is at www.uspto.gov. If you register (free) you can look in all patents, search in various ways and download patents (US$ 3 each).

Jan Didden

You can download for free, elsewise they will mail you the patent for $3 -- helpful for ideas which are pre-1976. Some of the Johnson ideas for tube amps are of this vintage.<p> As mentioned, you need the TIFF viewer to examine -- why they didn't use Adobe is beyond me, I suppose that there was some compression issue. FWIW, it costs anywhere from $15,000 on up to engage a patent attorney and if you have a really great idea it's better to prevent it from being pirated by not patenting it.
<p>With regard to enforceability -- if it's patented in the US and you try to bring in a competing product from abroad you are going to have a rough time.
<p> some of the search clues are given in the advanced search engine --- use identifiers like "AN/" for the assignee, "IN/" for inventor etc.
<p>The reason that many countries have poor pharma industries is that they have poor intellectual property rights in chemistry and allied sciences.
<p> I started putting some of the interesting patents for loudspeakers on this site: http://www.tech-diy.com/patents_loudspeakers.htm
when I was recuperating for a few weeks from an accident (lots of spare time, I watched every movie made in the 1930's over a six week period). I will be happy to add to it if folks forward their links to me.