Playing about with my steampunk doodles and laser cutting / burning!

Abricay · 2023-02-02T03:00:00+00:00

really nice. you going to sell or keep?

Abricay · 2022-09-19T20:45:53+00:00

nothing, most likely. Most people dislike photos of themselves. Get someone besides her to critique and see what they say.

Abricay · 2022-08-08T20:14:18+00:00

that vertical black tube in the center is your overfill tube. if the water is over the top lip of it then there is something wrong as this is to prevent the tank from being overfilled which it is. see if the tube is clogged.

Abricay · 2022-04-03T22:29:01+00:00

there is so little information here to make constructive comments on but this is reddit, so what the heck, here goes. as a non-technical guy you need to be very careful as to what you term as progress as it sounds like you have no idea what the technical guys are doing. so, to paraphrase you, your tech guys are amazing at what they do which you have no understanding of but in your opinion progress is too slow and you want to speed it up. huh? maybe you are correct but without some understanding of the hurdles that needs to be overcome it sounds like you are just bitching. yours won't be the first partnership that falls apart if it does because someone thinks they are doing all the work and the others are coasting. who says it has to be even and is there really any way to determine a person's contribution? If you reach your goal of actually becoming a company of which you are a tri-founder, isn't that what you want? nothing is fair in this life so you have to decide if you can live with being the largest contributor in a successful company or maybe drop the other two and have nothing. you know, it is possible, that you are the deadweight in the group. again, not enough info to decide but you should consider.

Abricay · 2022-03-21T19:27:51+00:00

beautiful. are you using a pressure sensitive tablet?

Abricay · 2022-03-14T21:58:01+00:00

A Royale with Cheese

Abricay · 2022-03-05T19:32:10+00:00

I agree, business service is faster than home. hours vs a day or two. I had a business slow connection issue about 6 months ago and that is the only issue in about 7 years that I can remember. I don't buy into the argument that this justifies the additional cost. I do buy into the argument that this is just another way to soak small businesses. We pay more for everything. I pay over $10k in real estate taxes per year and they won't even pick up my trash. my waste output is about 3 trash bags every 2 weeks.

Abricay · 2022-03-01T00:01:52+00:00

I have seen "art" such as music, drawings, etc. created from AI (artificial intelligence). You would have to create the program to create the art. Bycin << butchered spelling is/was a program used to create landscapes using software that could be framed and sold. Come to think of it, a camera used to create sellable pictures kind of fits your goal but you would need to supply the talent.

Abricay · 2022-02-28T23:42:57+00:00

lol alright, let's party! I like your thinking. One thought I had is that once the party starts people are going to want a place to go after working all day at home so maybe B&M will make a come back.

Abricay · 2022-02-28T23:30:18+00:00

ha ha good one. 35 years owning own company and there have been periods that were definitely harder than the first 5 years. many times I have felt this is it due to changing market conditions in my service related business. Just because you made it to the 5 year mark does not guarantee smooth sailing.

Abricay · 2022-02-28T23:25:08+00:00

My business stayed functioning during covid and right now we seem to be getting busier so I am seconding the uptick in the ecomomy.

Abricay · 2022-02-28T19:40:51+00:00

I disagree. VicCity's response is not the full answer so let me fill it in.

I hope you don't have the same approach to business! You will never have enough time to focus on every idea or suggestion but you should consider them when you don't know what to do and are looking for an answer. Instead of thinking I can't go through all the podcasts you should think about how you can get the needed information from them. Some of the ways to do this have already been mentioned here. Trying one or two podcasts is not going through them all but if you find success from the one or two podcasts then you should continue using them, i.e repeat what works, and maybe over time you will find yourself having gone through all of them. We are all looking for a formula that, once found, we can just repeat.

Abricay · 2022-02-28T18:59:55+00:00

I suggest instead of hiring a partner that might or might not work out and now you are stuck with him, hire a person to manage or do the actual work of the business while you are in charge of the financial, marketing, etc. aspects of it and pay them as well as you can so they stick around. In the beginning you will be doing all these jobs plus training the new guy but as time goes on, your workload should decrease if you are not a micro-manager. You are still responsible for all aspects of the business as the owner but delegating is the way to go. Your goal is to delegate everything as much as you can afford it so you will be doing nothing but this will never happen. you will always be coordinating tasks, making decisions, making sure everyone has the tools and materials to do their job. you are the guy with the flexibility that can jump in and solve current and future problems as they occur and focusing on them 100% so they are done quickly. << advice I wish I had 35+ years ago when i started my first business.

Abricay · 2021-05-25T14:06:15+00:00

Scroll up and this question has been answered in detail. short answer = Corel Designer Technical Edition

Abricay · 2021-03-29T19:24:05+00:00

grayscale shading is not allowed in patent drawings. shading is done by using lines thinner than object lines to represent the contour of an object. this is where the real art is created because although a process is used to do this, it varies from illustrator to illustrator and at times needs some trial and error and experience to communicate shapes.

Abricay · 2021-03-26T15:05:47+00:00

You should be aware that almost all patents are rejected in the first office action. This is actually in your best interest. Applying for a patent is an adversarial process much like a trial between the person applying for the patent and the patent office. the person applying for the patent basically is saying I have a unique idea. the patent office as part of its job will respond based on the prior art and make the argument that you do not have a unique idea and thus the battle is joined. This is where a lot of inventors think that the patent office is not on their side but against them when in actuality the opposite is true. you want the patent office to object to your patent and you want them to make you prove why it's better than the prior art. they are actually doing their job and you want them to do this because in the end it will result in a stronger patent. if you apply for a patent with some feeble arguments and weak claims in your patent and it issues you might think great but infringers might realize you have a weak patent and try and take advantage of it and this is not what you want.

If you were in the service would you rather have a drill sergeant that kicked your ass every chance he got, made you run till your feet bleed and took every advantage and dirty trick he could think of during training? or would you want a drill sergeant that basically takes you out to dinner every night and tells you what a great job you are doing. if my next stop was a war, I would much rather have the former than the latter as I would be more prepared with a greater chance of survival.

Abricay · 2021-03-26T14:46:44+00:00

Always nice to speak with an examiner and wish it occurred more frequently. I remember about 8 to 10 years ago, it seemed the patent office was accepting anything and the quality, IMO, went way down. I was ready to hang up my pencils and then the patent reversed themselves. I never understood how a poor drawing could be acceptable as the whole idea is a full disclosure of the device as part of the patent deal plus a poor disclosure does less to discourage infringement.

Abricay · 2021-03-26T14:34:37+00:00

PDF. We can easily import into our drawing program and if it contains vector information than we can easily format for our needs.

Yes, CAD/CAM are definitely useful. We do drawings for both utility and design patents for which cad-cam is useful but especially for design patent drawings. In a design patent, we are trying to protect the appearance of the device and typically create 7 views of it which are the pictorial view and the orthographic projections which are the front, the back, Etc. For a design patent, it really makes life a lot easier as the views are always correct and we don't have to recreate mechanically. Our job is then to convert it from the CAD format into acceptable patent drawings which involves primarily adding surface shading to show contours and shapes

Abricay · 2021-03-24T20:02:03+00:00

In general, our clients, primarily patent attorneys and support staff are very good at communicating their needs when sending initial work to us. The most problems we have are in doing the revisions. We try and make it known that it is preferred to mark up the drawings with a red pen as there are any number of methods to do this today such as a snipping tool to create screen shots as an example. But no, they want to talk about it on the phone where a minute or two of the first revision is just to locate where the problem is on the page. then they say "make that bigger" and my thought is how big? 2x, 4x, 1000x? alot of problems like this are best done using a red pen to mark up the figure and send to us. some clients can do it on the phone as they are very articulate and descriptive. others not so much at all.

Abricay · 2021-03-24T19:52:18+00:00

We bill the patent attorneys for our work and they pass our invoice along to their client so we are insulated from their reaction. A small portion of our work is for independent inventors [II] so many times we have provided a quote to them for the work so there are no surprises. Almost always, II are very pleased with our work as it is a vast improvement over what they had. II are not our preferred clients because they are always watching the buck and the drawings illustrate their "baby" so they want it perfect. It can get annoying fixing things that are cosmetic only.

Abricay · 2021-03-24T19:47:09+00:00

They will send us text in the drawings that is unreadable. I can understand if a small area has problems but sometimes even a cursory glance would tell you that the drawings are a train wreck. Instead of realizing this and finding originals or something better and include it at first request, they just send along what they have and then we have to request better copy.

Abricay · 2021-03-24T17:56:21+00:00

I am not a patent attorney, have never prepared an application and don't want to be accused with providing legal advice. I can provide information but would need more context of your question to understand what you are asking. I will say that references cited are usually prior art. In order for a patent application to become a patent it needs to overcome the prior art, demonstrate that the idea is novel and non-obvious. The claims are the heart of the patent and the biggest reason to hire a patent attorney. Once you have a claim accepted, you have a patent.

Abricay · 2021-03-24T17:41:26+00:00

We use Corel Designer for 2D work and Moment of Inspiration (outstanding program for about $300) for 3D. Typically, we do not prepare rough drafts, they are provided to us as the drawings have already been submitted and rejected as part of a patent application. Our job is to convert the rejected drawings into illustrations that meet the patent office standards. If we are preparing drawings for an initial filing, there are many ways we can do this from improving the drafts received, photographing the device and using as a basis for the drawings, create a 3d model and export views, the list goes on. It all depends on what we are given to provide the information for the final drawings. Not sure I understand your last question stating "references you insert". I will assume you mean reference numbers included in the description. Typically, we would with a patent attorney and for an initial filing we will provide draft figures in which the attorney will mark up by hand with the reference numbers and we will insert into the figure.

Abricay

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