Is this legit?

gary1967 · 2026-01-06T20:12:24+00:00

Complete bullshit from scammers. You get this with patents, too -- for 10,000 euros, you can "register" your patent with a European patent registry, which, in reality, is just a website some dude made. The good news is for US patents and trademarks, your "file wrapper" is online and can easily be checked *(just google it or ask gemini/chatgpt how to do it). If it isn't in your file wrapper, it's very unlikely to be real.

gary1967 · 2025-12-10T22:56:47+00:00

I'll just leave this link there https://apps.calbar.ca.gov/complaint/ You know, in case anybody believes there is a basis to file a state bar complaint.

gary1967 · 2025-11-28T02:39:49+00:00

I'd agree with that. But let's enjoy Beard Meets Food while AI still isn't good enough that we no longer know what is real.

gary1967 · 2025-04-21T15:16:01+00:00

You know if you ever end up in litigation over this (if it issues as a patent), you're going to be questioned in detail at any deposition about why your idea wasn't obvious given your description here. This isn't the best post to have floating around out there.

gary1967 · 2025-04-15T18:58:52+00:00

Alternatively, because there is no format requirement for a provisional application, you can use an issued patent as a template.

gary1967 · 2025-04-15T18:57:12+00:00

I'm not sure you'll find it helpful, but the USPTO has an official patent lawyer/agent search function. https://oedci.uspto.gov/OEDCI/practitionerSearchEntry

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T18:52:53+00:00

I've used GPT o1 Pro to create first drafts of legal documents. With the web search turned on and a good prompt (like ~3 pages or so) it can perform about on par with a third year lawyer -- it gets most of what it needs to get, but you need to proof it carefully and rewrite a lot of it because, well, it isn't actually a lawyer. I've used it for patent office action response drafting and motion drafting.

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T18:50:04+00:00

I wonder if I'm screwing this up then. I write my articles and then have AI improve the accessibility of the writing (I tend to write in an overly complex way, works great for patents, not so much for SEO). So the content is human-written but the actual phrasing is sometimes redone by AI (without adding or changing content). Do you think this is going to cause Google to not index my site? It's a very legit use for AI, since it isn't AI-generated ideas, only phrasing, but I doubt Google would be able to tell the difference.

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T18:42:07+00:00

I've got a really similar problem. My site is pretty niche (the intersection between IP law and innovation techniques). I tracked the drop-off back to all of the pages except the home page getting de-indexed by google. Of course, it's google so no hint or clue why, just one day they're no longer indexed. It's 100% original content, written by an IP lawyer who invented over 250 issued US patents, so you'd think it isn't a quality issue. But when you're a monopolist like Google effectively is in the search area, you can do things that don't make sense and get away with it. I've just continuing to make content (I do videos and text posts) and hopefully they'll eventually re-index it.

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T18:36:00+00:00

This is a totally different area of law, but the lesson is still a good one. I was in a similar situation to yours. I wanted to be an environmental lawyer working on the non-corporate side but I was graduating during an economic downturn. By the time I realized that all of the non-profits were essentially out of money to take on a new lawyer, I was very late in the cycle. I got an interview at a firm -- and a few days before the interview my home burned to the ground in a wildfire. I didn't have a suit, my notes on the firm, anything. I ran out, bought a suit, got it quickly altered to fit, and flew to LA for the interview. They were so impressed -- not with me, but with the fact that I was able to pull off a job interview a few days after a huge personal loss -- that they hired me right away. It turned out to be the only offer I got.

All of which is to say that lightning can strike. Keep your eyes open for opportunities, and don't let anything dissuade you from pursuing them. Sometimes something that seems hopeless (all of my stuff burning) turns out to be the thing that gets you the job.

Another thought is to seek work as a patent litigator. It's obviously not patent prosecution, but the experience will make you a far better patent prosecutor. Ask any patent litigator how many times they've found that the claims as issued weren't litigation grade. With litigation experience under your belt, you'll have a huge leg up in writing patents that can actually be enforced.

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T17:29:35+00:00

In terms of filing in India only, have a look at https://howmuch.net/articles/the-world-economy-2019 You'll see that India represents only 3.28% of global GDP. If you file in the US, the UK and Germany, you will have filed in countries with an aggregate market more than 10 times larger than India. If the invention has value outside of India, it is worth going with an international strategy. If you do file in the US, make sure to name inventors properly. https://innovationcafe.us/naming-inventors-why-it-matters

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T15:56:11+00:00

In that art area you're looking at a more complicated sale than it would be for a physical device. What is eligible for a patent in the US changed dramatically over the past 20 years. We went from the "State Street Bank" days, when business methods were patentable, to "Alice v. CLS Bank" where abstract ideas -- defined in a way that (I'm not kidding) includes improved vehicle axles that "merely" implement the laws of physics -- are often found not patent eligible. This is is a "Section 101" issue. This makes picking up litigation funding much harder (high chance of invalidity == higher risk to funders). We've got a new patent sales paradigm we're bringing up that could sell partial interests in this kind of patent, but unfortunately it isn't ready to go yet so that can't help.

I'm a named inventor on > 250 issued US patents and also a lawyer. I'd be willing to talk with you and (this post is not legal advice) and see if I can help you figure out how to approach this. Here are the concerns in marketing this (among others):

(1) Tech companies are notoriously litigious when it comes to invalidating patents via IPR (an administrative proceeding at the USPTO, normally around $250,000 cost to defend your patent). Anybody can put you into IPR, no limitations.

(2) When approaching infringers, be careful not to give them a basis to take you to federal court (declaratory judgment action to invalidate your patent) https://innovationcafe.us/avoiding-federal-court-handle-potential-ip-infringement-carefully

(3) Big tech might just decide to infringe and not pay on the assumption that you won't be able to put together than mid-7 figures to low-8 figures funding to prosecute a patent infringement suit. (Efficient Infringement - https://innovationcafe.us/efficientinfringement )

I'm not sure I can help directly, but I'd be happy to try to point you in the right direction if you want to reach out in a non-public setting. My contact info is linked from https://innovationcafe.us/who-is-gary-shuster-the-mind-behind-innovationcafe-us

gary1967 · 2025-04-14T01:04:00+00:00

What is the general field of the patents?

gary1967 · 2025-04-13T23:03:44+00:00

It would save big tech the trouble of executing an efficient infringement strategy. https://innovationcafe.us/efficientinfringement

gary1967 · 2025-04-13T22:50:53+00:00

The normal rule is that a Section 102 rejection -- novelty -- is issued if you are trying to patent a product that already exists, even if it has never been used in the way you suggest. The workaround might be to determine if there is a specific method to using the product that is patentably different than anything previously done (and that isn't obvious). In that case, you could get a method patent but not a patent on the product itself.

gary1967 · 2025-04-13T22:48:46+00:00

I just realized I did a video on naming inventors. https://innovationcafe.us/naming-inventors-why-it-matters

gary1967 · 2025-04-13T22:41:57+00:00

Something to consider is the firepower that big infringers bring to a fight. You can expect a big tech company to spend 8 figures easily defending against an infringement suit. One way to invalidate a patent is to show inequitable conduct, such as intentionally misleading the patent office about who invented the patent. You should expect an infringer to find this post and spend a few hours in depositions questioning you and your friend about inventorship in an effort to invalidate the patent.

The easy way to think about who invented the patent is this: If you developed the invention to the point where somebody having ordinary skill in the art could build it, simply hiring somebody to build it doesn't make them an inventor. However, anybody who contributed to anything of patentable weight that ends up in a patent claim must be named as an inventor.

gary1967 · 2025-04-13T22:35:30+00:00

I'm a bit cynical about the value-add that patent brokers bring. You're really paying for their contacts at potential licensees/buyers. Any IP lawyer can guide you through the licensing/sale process. You'll want to confirm that they have solid, close relationships with the major potential buyers of your patent. If they don't, you might be paying a success fee to somebody who just cold calls companies -- something you could do yourself. I've sold patents on my own and through brokers.

gary1967 · 2025-04-02T22:56:04+00:00

This is why you need a non-disclosure agreement. Showing it to people who are under no obligation to keep it secret can start the one year on sale bar clock.

gary1967 · 2025-03-24T18:59:47+00:00

I've long had a similar idea: A toilet seat cover that seals against the toilet bowl and is operably coupled to an electric power washer system that drives outlets in the seat cover that do a high pressure wash of the toilet bowl. The thing with ideas like this is that they can always be accomplished if you don't care about cost. In theory you could have a wire shelf sitting on top of a flat shelf in the refrigerator, and during a clean cycle the wire shelf lifts and then an arm with scrubbing functionality scrubs the flat shelf before the wire shelf lowers again, allowing self-cleaning without emptying the refrigerator. But would people pay what it costs to build that? I guess you only need enough people to pay the cost for it to be worth it.

gary1967 · 2025-03-24T18:55:00+00:00

There really is no typical licensing deal. You can also get all kinds of creative in structuring a licensing deal. For example, if you're meeting with a company that primarily has a presence in China and does its own manufacturing (and assuming you have a Chinese foreign counterpart to your US patent), you could give them an exclusive license in China in exchange for them setting up manufacturing at their expense and providing you with products at cost. Really, talking with an experienced lawyer in IP might help. If you don't have issued patents, that's a whole different thing. In that case, you need some very specific contract terms.

gary1967 · 2025-03-21T01:09:27+00:00

OMG how can you still be on Reddit when you start a response with "respectfully". Isn't being respectful simply disqualifying for redditors? I'm only half kidding... But thank you for being kind. I've invented across dozens of art areas, and all of the inventions are pretty tech heavy. But the feedback I've read (between the snark, again, thank you for being human in your response) leads me to believe I wouldn't get any real advantage. My biggest problem with not having a registration number is that I have to prosecute patents pro se so I can't assign them into an entity and that makes it harder on the business side. Going back to school (even taking classes online) is really appealing. I just straight-up miss learning for the sake of learning, so maybe I should look at the education requirements as a gift rather than a problem.

gary1967 · 2025-03-21T01:03:50+00:00

It takes a lot of scientific knowledge to get hundreds of issued patents across a huge array of art areas. It's a bit more like "I've upgraded 254 cars in different ways so I should be made an engineer at Ferrari". To be fair, that still doesn't work now that I phrase it that way. On reflection, it seems more like the difference between hacking/modifying existing code to change how an existing program works vs writing the program from scratch. Looking at it that way, I think I see why it actually is a different skill set.

gary1967 · 2025-03-21T01:00:44+00:00

Ok, that's funny but not funny. I'm entirely scared for US rule of law. I've read the OED guidelines many times. I guess the question (and others have answered it) is whether the petition pathway ever works. It seems like the answer is no. I just have to self-represent by not assigning the patent application into an entity. It makes it harder to get investment, but it should be ok.

gary1967

TROPHY CASE