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Inventor's Notebook Gadgets, garage projects, and what I've learned about patents the hard way by Gene A., retired machinist

I spent 34 years running lathes and mills for other people. Now I'm retired and I run them for myself, out in a two-car garage that hasn't had a car in it since 1994. My wife calls it "the shop." I call it the shop too. She calls it other things when I track metal shavings into the house. My grandson set this page up for me over Labor Day weekend and showed me how to change it. I'm typing this with two fingers, so bear with me. What you'll find here: the things I've built, what I've figured out about the patent business, some inventions that happened by accident (which should encourage anybody), and a hint about the project on my bench right now. Contents: Projects  |  Patents in Plain English  |  Happy Accidents  |  On the Bench Now  |  Links

Projects The Squirrel-Proof Bird Feeder (Mark IV) I've been at war with squirrels for eleven years. Marks I through III lost. Mark IV is holding. The idea is simple: the perch is a counterweighted bar. A cardinal or a finch weighs a couple of ounces and nothing happens. Anything over about six ounces (a gray squirrel runs a pound or more) tips the bar and a sheet-metal shroud slides down over the feeding ports. The trick was the pivot: I tried springs first, and springs get weak and gummy in the cold. Now it's a plain counterweight on a stainless pin with a nylon bushing, and you set the trip weight by sliding the weight along a threaded rod. No electricity, nothing to rust, and I can adjust it if the squirrels start a diet. Been up since March. The squirrels have moved on to my wife's tomatoes, which is her department. The Folding Sawhorse Store-bought folding sawhorses are either flimsy or thirty dollars. Mine are made from 2x4 scraps, four hinges each, and a length of light chain to stop the legs from spreading. The legs fold flat against the top so a pair hangs on the garage wall taking up about four inches. They hold a sheet of plywood and me standing on it (220 pounds, don't tell my doctor). Not patentable, plenty of people have done something similar, but they're handy and I've made six pairs for the neighbors. If you want the dimensions, e-mail me and I'll type them up. The Self-Emptying Rain Gauge This one I'm a little proud of. A regular rain gauge, you have to go out and read it and dump it. Mine uses a tipping bucket: a little seesaw with two tiny cups. Rain fills one cup, it tips, dumps, and the other cup comes up under the funnel. Each tip is a known amount of water (I calibrated it with a syringe, one hundredth of an inch per tip). A magnet on the seesaw passes a reed switch every tip, and the switch clicks a cheap mechanical counter from a surplus catalog. So I read the counter from the kitchen window with binoculars, zero it once a month, and never touch the thing. The idea itself is old, the Weather Bureau has used tipping buckets for a century, but I built mine for under fifteen dollars, and the surplus counter was ten of that. Smaller things: a jig for sharpening lawnmower blades on the bench grinder at the right angle every time; a magnetic parts tray that sticks to the mill; a deadblow mallet turned from a chunk of maple and filled with lead shot; a bracket that lets my wife's dryer vent go through the wall instead of the window, which I mention only because it earned me more goodwill than any invention I've ever made.

Patents in Plain English I am not a lawyer or a patent agent, just a fellow who's been through it once (see below). This is what I wish somebody had told me up front. When it's time to do it for real, hire a professional. 1. Keep a notebook. A real one. Bound, not loose-leaf, pages numbered, written in ink. Every time you have an idea, sketch it, date it, and sign it. Every so often have somebody who understands it (and who isn't a co-inventor) read a page and sign "read and understood" with the date. In this country the patent goes to whoever invented it first, not whoever filed first, so if it ever comes to an argument, that notebook is your evidence. It also just keeps you honest about what worked and what didn't. Mine are composition books from the drugstore, 89 cents. 2. Find out if it's already been done. This is called a prior art search, and most of the time the answer is "yes, in 1911." Don't be discouraged; it happens to everybody. The Patent Office puts its records on the Internet now, and there's a Patent and Trademark Depository Library in most states (mine is at the state university) where the librarians will show you how to search the classifications. Do this before you spend money. Also look in catalogs and hardware stores. A thing can be unpatentable just because it's already for sale. 3. Know what the patent actually gives you. A utility patent is for how a thing works; a design patent is just for how it looks. A patent doesn't give you the right to make your invention. It gives you the right to stop other people from making, using or selling it, for a limited time. Since the law changed in 1995, a utility patent runs 20 years from the date you file. And it's up to you to enforce it. The government won't do it for you. If somebody copies you, you're the one hiring the lawyer. 4. Don't show it off before you file. Here in the U.S. you have one year from the time you publicly show, describe or sell an invention to get your application in. After that it's public property. In most other countries there's no grace period at all. So don't put your gadget on your web page (I haven't, you'll notice) and don't sell one to your brother-in-law until you've talked to somebody. 5. There's a cheaper first step called a provisional application. Since 1995 you can file a "provisional" application. It's less formal, you don't need the claims written in lawyer language, and the fee is small compared to the real thing. It holds your place in line for one year and lets you say "patent pending." But it's not a patent. Inside that year you have to file the regular application or the provisional just expires. I think of it as a down payment. 6. Get help for the real application. You are allowed to file your own patent application. You are also allowed to take out your own appendix. The claims (the numbered sentences at the end that say exactly what you own) are the whole ballgame, and writing them is a craft. A registered patent agent can do it (they've passed the Patent Office exam but aren't lawyers, and usually charge less); a patent attorney can do it and also handle it if things get legal. Ask for one who's worked in your kind of technology. 7. It costs real money. Between the filing fees, the search, the drawings and the professional's time, a straightforward mechanical patent is a few thousand dollars at least, and more if the examiner argues with you (they usually do, at least once). And once it's granted there are maintenance fees due at intervals to keep it alive. The Patent Office does charge individuals and small businesses about half what it charges big companies, which helps. But sit down first and ask honestly: will I ever sell enough of these to get that back? Sometimes the right answer is to build a dozen for your friends and enjoy it. 8. Be careful with the "invention promotion" outfits. You'll see the ads on late-night TV. Some are honest. Some will take a big fee up front, tell every idea it's wonderful, and deliver nothing. Ask them for their success rate in writing, ask for references, and talk to a real patent agent or attorney before you sign anything. My own story, short version: in 1996 I filed a provisional on a tool-holder for a lathe. Did the search myself, found nothing close. Hired an agent for the full application. The examiner found something close (a German patent from the fifties, in German, which is why I didn't find it). We narrowed the claims, went around twice, and it was granted in 1998. Total cost a little over four thousand dollars, and I have licensed it to exactly nobody so far. But my name is on a patent, my grandkids think that's something, and I'd do it again. Slower.

Happy Accidents Famous things that were invented by mistake, or by somebody paying attention when something went wrong. I keep this list taped inside the shop door for the days when nothing works. The microwave oven. Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon, was working on radar magnetrons in 1945 and noticed the candy bar in his pocket had melted. He tried popcorn next. Popcorn worked. The first ovens were the size of a refrigerator. Post-it Notes. A chemist at 3M, Spencer Silver, came up with an adhesive in 1968 that stuck but didn't stick very hard, and nobody could think what it was good for. Years later a co-worker, Art Fry, got tired of his bookmarks falling out of his church hymnal and remembered the weak glue. They went on sale nationwide in 1980. Teflon. Roy Plunkett at DuPont, 1938, opened a cylinder of refrigerant gas that had turned into a waxy white solid nothing would stick to. Now it's on my frying pan. Velcro. A Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, went hunting in the 1940s and came home with burrs stuck to his pants and his dog. He looked at them under a microscope, saw the tiny hooks, and spent years figuring out how to make them in nylon. The Slinky. Richard James, a naval engineer, was working on springs for ship instruments in 1943 when one fell off a shelf and "walked" down. His wife Betty came up with the name. Penicillin. Alexander Fleming came back from vacation in 1928 to find mold growing on a dish of bacteria, and a clear ring around the mold where the bacteria had died. He noticed. That's the whole trick, noticing. Vulcanized rubber. Charles Goodyear, 1839, spilled a mix of rubber and sulfur on a hot stove and got a rubber that didn't go sticky in summer or brittle in winter. He'd been trying for years on purpose. Moral: keep your notebook handy and pay attention when things go wrong. Most of my ideas came from being annoyed at something.

On the Bench Now See item 4 above about not showing things off. So I'll just say this: it's for the kitchen, it has no motor, my wife has asked for it three times, and it involves a cam. The second prototype is on the bench and the first one is in the scrap bucket where it belongs. Notebook number 9, pages 31 through 58. If it works I'll say so here. If it doesn't, you'll never hear about it again. Also coming: photos of the shop and the feeder, once my grandson brings his digital camera down again. My own camera uses film and the drugstore takes a week.

Other Pages Worth a Look The Eureka neighborhood, where this page lives, for other folks who build things. Hartley Hardware & Garden. A family hardware store with a web page. Good people; I buy my hinges there. Backyard Birds of Wisconsin. If you're going to build a feeder you ought to know who's eating at it. Weather Watching with Walter. A cooperative weather observer's page. He'd have opinions about my rain gauge. Home Office Help. If your gadget ever turns into a business, start here. Brian's PC Help Page. Where I went when this computer started making a noise.

Questions, arguments, or a better mousetrap? E-mail me at [email protected]. I answer everything, but not fast. Two fingers, remember. You are visitor number Last updated September 12, 1999.   © 1999 Gene A. Nothing on this page is legal advice. Measure twice, cut once.