NEVADA INVENTORS ASSOCIATION

"The past is prologue,

Study the past"

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Time for Action--The End is Near

As you know, HB 400 has passed. It was a 95 page catch-all. Now we have a Senate bill which is 110 pages. OK, what happens next?

S.507 has emerged from the Senate Judiciary Committee with near unanimous approval. Only the Sen. Fred Thompson (TN) was in opposition. Granted, it is a vastly different bill than the Senate first proposed with some major victories for the small businessman. Congratulations, this proves your letters and calls had some impact. Still there are disadvantages. It should not be allowed to pass. If it does, a final "Patent Reform Bill" by a joint committee of both houses would be presented to the President. Fortunately, Sen. Chris (Kit) Bond of Missouri put a hold on S.507. How long that will last is hard to tell.

We must write or call Senators Bryan and Reed and express our opposition to S.507. If S.507 dies, HR 400 will also die. It can only mean more governmental intervention in all our lives. The president was elected on a platform of smaller government.

WHAT YOU CAN DO!

The following was written by S.S. Fishman, Small Entity Patent Owners Association, Phone 501/934-1132.

PHONE CALL; We should all call Sen. Bond (202/224-5721, FAX 202/224-8149) and thank him for his "hold." He needs to know he has our support. We were able to amend the reexamination procedures and early publication (inventors who state they have no intention to file for foreign patents) can request no publication at 18 months. Now we need to call or FAX Senators Harry Read and Richard Bryan with reasons why the PTO should not be privatized and why "Prior User Rights" are not wanted. They need to know right now!
PRESIDENT CLINTON; It is time now to look a head to when and if the President will be asked to sign the Patent Bill. We should write to him and tell him we do not want him to sign it, and would prefer a veto. Same to V.P. Al Gore.
KILL THE BILL IN THE SENATE; When the hold is lifted, S.507 will go to the Senate floor. There we can amend it again or kill it. Every Senator needs to be contacted. You can do that right now!
TELEPHONE TREE; Pres. Bill Clinton (same for V.P. Al Gore) Ph. 202/456-1111, FAX 202/456-2461 Toll free capitol ph#:800/972-3524 (try first).
Any Senator can be reached at the Senate Office Building, Wash. DC 20510

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Tobacco Additive Patents

There is a wealth of in for information to be had from analyzing tobacco company patents. The following are just a few of the nearly sixty tobacco additive patents:
5,148,817 ...heterocyclic ether-substituted carboxylate compounds Philip Morris
5,144,048 ...Dicarboalkoxy dioxolane derivatives L. Givaudan & Cie, Switzerland
5,513,368 ...carbohydrate ester levulinate or levulinic acid R.J. Reynolds Tobacco
3,907,321 ...isomers of an octahydrotetramethyl acetonaphthone International Flavors & Fragrances
3,782,391 ...beta.-menthyvaleric acid alkyl esters Liggett & Myers

Patent Potluck Picnic Set

Host for our Patent Potluck Picnic meeting will be our Secretary, Tom Ballow. The picnic will be held August 23 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the north end of Galena Park, seven miles up the Mt. Rose Highway. Seems there's a sign saying "Bearmat Group Picnic Area." NIA will supply soft drinks... hard ones you'll have to provide for yourselves. Bring your prototypes for a show and tell. Also if you have any new games which might be fun to play, bring them.

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Be a Patent Spy for the FBI

Want to be a spy? Here's your chance. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking evidence of restraint of trade and monopolization in the computer and telecommunications industry. Currently their big investigation is that of Microsoft, but they are looking for other cases of abuse of economic power by dominant companies.

With regard to patents, the Justice Department is looking for cases where the owner of a patent denied a potential licensee a license for the patent while giving licenses to competitors.

Of course given that some companies might be unwilling to inform on their suppliers or competitors, the Justice Department is open to anonymous tips from knowledgeable sources. While you can have your attorney contact and meet with Justice Department attorneys, you can also send in tips, via, you guessed it, the internet:
antitrust@justice.usdoj.gov
Be that Deep Electronic Throat!!! Greg Aharonian, Internet Patent News Service

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Killing Germs by UV Light

Successful young entrepreneur Brad Hollander of Minden, head of privately owned Steril Aire, Inc. will tell how he did it at our next meeting. His invention is the first device to use Ultra-violet light to sterilize air, food, water, sewage and surfaces. The 35- year old inventor patented the device in 1993 and has since raised over a million-and-a-half to bring it to the market. Among his accounts are Smuckers and Perier. It is used to sterilize everything from bottle caps to conveyor belts and laboratory surfaces. He was very young when he first conceived it twenty-years ago and says he learned by doing. Obviously he did very well.

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Bank of America Overtures

According to last month's edition of the Costco magazine, the Bank of America claims they will make unsecured small business loans of $50,000 to inventors and entrepreneurs. Make them prove it!

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World's First Patent in 1421

Filippo Brunelleschi the architect of Florence's remarkable cathedral, won the world's first patent for a technical invention in 1421. Brunelleschi was a classic man of the Renaissance: tough-minded, multi-talented and thoroughly self-confident. He claimed he had invented a new means of conveying goods up the Arno River (he was intentionally vague on details), which he refused to develop unless the state kept others from copying his design. Florence complied, and Brunelleschi walked away with the right to exclude all new means of transport the Arno for three years.

That Florence acceded to Brunelleschi's demands is hardly surprising. The Italian Renaissance city-states, locked in a struggle for wealth and power, habitually gave monopolies to those who would build a needed bridge or mill, or who introduced some useful craft or industry. They would issue "letter patents," public declarations that openly (patently) announced the privilege. What distinguished Brunelleschi's bargain was invention - he was awarded the exclusive use of his own creation.
Greg Alaronian, Internet Patent News Service

NIA Invention of the Month

Paul McCain's Powered Dent Puller

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