Patents

[Brian]

Well I mean, is this grounds for going "Hey, Here's my adjustable ridgeline hammock for sale!". If anyone decides to argue, point them to that patent, now expired for patent protection, and go on your merry way.

Oh ,if only it was that easy:\

Brian

[Youngblood]

issac palmer.

I originally misspelled his name, it is Isaac. I believe his full name is Isaac Emerson Palmer.

You have to be careful judging things in different times and eras. Data bases that are easily accessible and very fast made it possible for me to do that research. I don't know if that would have been the case a few years ago and I don't know that anyone would have looked for a patent about an adjustable ridgeline in a patent about a bugnet. I only looked there because I got curious about IE Palmer and what he had done. I was also able to understand that a 'stretcher' was a 'ridgeline' and that 'hammock stretch' was 'hammock sag'... not everybody would have made that connect, especially when they weren't looking for it. There was more luck to me finding that than you probably realize... I'm not a super snoop from CSI.

[warbonnetguy]

that's true, but it did have "hammock" in the title of the patent, if someone is applying for a hammock related patent you would think they (examiners) would at least glance at the diagrams of all other "hammock" patents they have issued in the past to see if there might be some similarities to the one being applied for. doesn't take long to glance at a drawing and get a pretty good idea of what it's about, even if there are 1000 hammock patents, i mean it costs thousands of dollars and the review period takes 18 months, that should be enough time, if it's not enough money they need to charge enough to do their job right. i think they should have found it. they have the origionals there at the uspto, all the hammock ones should be on the same shelf/box/pile, if you had them right there in front of you you would think they would feel obligated to at least flip through the pages and glance at the pictures.

[slowhike]

i wonder what Tom H would have to say about those patents?

[Youngblood]

that's true, but it did have "hammock" in the title of the patent, if someone is applying for a hammock related patent you would think they (examiners) would at least glance at the diagrams of all other "hammock" patents they have issued in the past to see if there might be some similarities to the one being applied for. doesn't take long to glance at a drawing and get a pretty good idea of what it's about, even if there are 1000 hammock patents, i mean it costs thousands of dollars and the review period takes 18 months, that should be enough time, if it's not enough money they need to charge enough to do their job right. i think they should have found it. they have the origionals there at the uspto, all the hammock ones should be on the same shelf/box/pile, if you had them right there in front of you you would think they would feel obligated to at least flip through the pages and glance at the pictures.

Brandon,

I thought about what you said and did a little more looking. This 2006 patent (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT7020915) references IE Palmer's Hammock-Canopy Patent #688,029, so I don't know what to tell you.

[warbonnetguy]

i bet the uspto just assumes the listed citations of the applicant/lawyer is adequate, even though they are supposed to do a search themselves. from what i hear the whole patent system is in shambles these days, and basically everything smee said is probably true. they just figure they are in the business of issuing patents and it's up to the courts to decide if something should be overturned.

[warbonnetguy]

that stand in one of the links above looked just like the byer hammock stand, and i wondered if the byer stand was patented, it wasn't, but i came across this


isn't this the patented hh snake skin?http://www.byerofmaine.com/amaz-acces_hamm-sock.htm

[Narwhalin]

isn't this the patented hh snake skin?http://www.byerofmaine.com/amaz-acces_hamm-sock.htm

...and a 5 pounder at that!

[warbonnetguy]

yeah, i saw that too, how can it possibly be that heavy? has to be a typo.

[Knowledgeengine]

I just wanted to tell you guys the patent search *does* search inside of the text of the patents. Even the old ones. If you scroll the the bottom them have done OCR on all of them so the scanned image is converted into plain text.

I'm not hating on any particular brands, but it kinda makes me wonder if *someones* patents would hold up in a court. The amount of prior art is overwhelming. Would be curious if anyone with a law degree out there would be willing to manufacture a ring buckle(webbing tree huggers) with structual ridgeline add on system just to see if anyone takes it as bait to sue.

Kind like that Blue Jean Cable fiasco http://www.audioholics.com/news/indu...s-strikes-back