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[Penny Ballou]

Mr. Auslander,

One para of my email was scrambled by your server it added the word "thingy" and deleted the word Harry; the it cut the line off; and placed instead a comma. I know not why. The para should read:

==========
On the other hand, I realize your time is limited and you certainly are not in a position to review every link any Tom, Dick, and Harry posts. Consequently, I appreciate your forthrightness and merely seek to set the record straight while reiterating that I am not in the habit of making a fool of myself let alone reciting statutes or case law.

===========

[PBallou]

I give up!

I should have typed "Dick" in my correction and not Harry. Nevertheless, it cut off Dick and replaced it **again** with "thingy?" (not even a word for Gawd's sake).

Apologies as I slink off into a corner.

[M. Arthur Auslander]

Dear Ms. Ballou and BMH Esq,

I believe that just getting a patent can be a waste of time, money and worry. Without feeling arrogant, my legal experience convinces me that just being smart and being able to solicit patents can be unfair to many inventors.

I don't think I have met more than one or two inventors who have had the skill and insight to write their own patent application with the legal and practical reality to get adequate protection or know when to give up or even get weak patents for a practical commercial reason.

Intellect is not the entire answer. Knowledge of the law, legal instinct to cope with weakness helps to maximize the possibility value out of patents.

When I started to practice law, patents did not even occured to me. One of my best friends and his brother were patent lawyers. They urged be to take the patent bar and gave books to study.

One of them wrote the patent for the polarized folded metal electrical plug, featured on the 200th anniverary poster for the Patent Statute. He became my first law partner. My next partner wrote the book on Chemical Patents. He started the update and left this world for me to finish publication as co author.

Jerry Lemelson, used to write his own patent applications. When he came to me for help I could see he was a genius but that he could not write a good patent. It took patent lawyers and his genius to make the multi multi million he finally made just before dying.

My brag is that I'm not rich, but straight and hardworking and with a conscience that allows me to sleep at night. I've put my client's interest ahead of my own, within reason.

Essentially for an inventor to get value he must have the advantage of more than the words of the Statute and a patent search.

Then the facts of life are that just because you have a good invention and even a good patent, it still might not make money.

I cannot see into what is going to happen in the real world, but I do know that there are some roads that end at a legal cliff and can warn inventors to at least be careful.

Just reading law or writing claims may get patents but even good patents may not prosper. There is my personal friend with a better device NOT winnng a 50 Million Dollar prize.

OK if you want go read your law write you patents, it will keep you from the $100 million annual scammers where only one in 10,000 get back more than they pay.

M. Arthur Auslander
Auslander & Thomas-Intellectual Property Law Since 1909
3008 Johnson Ave., New York, NY 10463
7185430266, aus@auslander.com
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[eric stasik]

Dear Ms. Ballou,

Apparently, this blog software contains rather crude censorware which blocks the use of some words. I assume you wrote tom, richard and harry and the server stipped away the nickname for harry and inserted thingy instead... (but not on preview.)

if it were not so annoying would be really funny.... here let's try....

dick

regards,

[eric stasik]

yup. that's it.

i will resist the temptation to try other words......

regards,

[M. Arthur Auslander]

Dear Penny Ballou,

I don't understand the last reply. My thesis is that JUST GETTING A PATENT can be a waste of time money and worry. What is worse it can be a source of victimizing niave inventors who place hopes of a fortune on a patent document that may be valid but valueless.

There can be value even in an avoidable patent, but my thesis is DON'T WASTE TIME MONEY AND WORRY on getting a patent unless there is a VALUE in what you do.

Thus a weak patent on a commercial product may be valuable, even if the patent is avoidable. An individual inventor with a weak patent usually just spends money and gets no value.

[JimIvey]

Dear Mr. Auslander,

Do you really have to post the same exact answer to every single question on this forum irrespective of relevance?  Many of the questions here have nothing to do with whether it's worthwhile to get a patent in the first place, yet that's precisely the question you prefer to answer on a daily basis.  Perhaps you should contribute to the FAQ section of this site and then reserve your "complete waste of time and money" answer for the questions to which that answer might actually be relevant.

Just a thought....

Regards.

[eric stasik]

Dear Mr. Ivey,

With all due respect, sir, your last post was uncalled for. There are many people who do not visit this site as often as you and I and Mr. Auslander. Morbid redundancy is a risk of posting often - here or on any other blog.

Mr. Auslander makes a good point which honestly cannot be repeated too many times. In my humble opinion, that is. When discussing patents, even tangentially, it is always worthwhile to ask yourself WHY you are thinking about applying for a patent.

Your posts are one of the reasons I visit here as often as I do. The majority of your comments are well thought out, on topic, and consistently informative - even for a know-it-all such as myself.

It is important to maintain an exceptionally high degree of civility among the participants to prevent these boards from disintegrating into a shouting match and making people feel unwelcome - having been shouted out of my share of sites (for my radical pro-patent beliefs) I am perhaps overly sensitive to it.

If I am out of line for expressing this view, I ask you to kindly excuse my outburst. I had a late night preparing a client proposal and the words just weren't coming. I just stopped over here for a brief diversion.

Regards,

[JimIvey]

The appropriateness of continuing this discussion on-list is a bit dubious, but I'll address your post on-list since your comment was on-list.  We should probably continue the discussion off-list.

In terms of civility, I perceived Mr. Auslander to be badgering Penny Ballou with his daily "complete waste of time" message.  I know Penny to be a valuable contributor in this and other forums.  At least once in this thread, he was rather rude and insulting to Penny.  

In addition, I count no less than 5 posts by Mr. Auslander in this thread alone that getting a patent can be a complete waste of time and money.  How many times should that be posted in a single thread?  I would argue less than once on average, because many questions in this forum have nothing to do with the decision to get a patent.  If the question does pertain to whether to get a patent, I think raising the point once is enough, unless it generates follow-up questions/discussion.  I believe that the lack of follow-up questions/discussion suggests that people here "get it."

We all have a pet points vis-a-vis patents.  I have mine and I call that article "The Most Important Thing You Need to Know About Patents."  And, for the record, it has nothing to do with "complete waste of time and money".  But I don't work it into every single post of mine.

I don't wish to be unkind, but due to the similarity of Mr. Auslander's posts, I believe that the full benefit of his contribution to this forum can be achieved by reading 3 or 4 of his posts and ignoring the rest.  I believe he is certainly capable of contributing more, but for whatever reason he seems to chose not to.  And, I don't feel the same way about his posts in the trademark and copyright forums.  

Lastly, repeating one's favorite post in case newbies might be lurking about is generally considered inappropriate behavior in an on-line forum (a violation of "netiquette").  That's why FAQs exist -- to avoid redundancy and to promote free flow of current and relevant information free from traffic of old, redundant ideas.

In summary, I was reacting to what I perceived to be incivility to Penny.  My intent was to uphold the value of this forum.  If I inadvertantly detracted from the value of this forum, I apologize.

Regards.

[eric stasik]

Mr. Ivey,

I stand corrected. Your point is well taken and in light of them my remarks can only be seen as intemperate.

Please accept my apologies for mouthing off.  

Regards,

[JimIvey]

Hi Eric,

No need to apologize.  As long as I made myself clear and haven't inadvertantly offended anyone, I'm happy.

Thanks for your contributions here and for keeping me on my toes!

Best regards,

Jim