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September 22, 2005

and you thought you were having a bad day?

 
Have you ever had one of those days? 
 
You know the type - where the wierdest things happen and everyone is amazed they happened to you.  Well, it could always be worse.
 
Wired Magazine has an online article describing Philip French's bad day... a bad day that has kept on going and going and going...
When New England inventor Philip French had his epiphany 15 years ago, he didn't dream it would lead to an invention that would be pressed into service in a top-secret government project, or spawn an epic court battle over the limits of executive power. He was just admiring a tennis ball.

The ball's seam, with its two symmetrical halves embracing each other in a graceful curve, intrigued him. "I thought, my god, I bet you can do something with that kind of shape," he recalls. He was right. French and two colleagues went on to design and patent a device now called the Crater Coupler, a simple, foolproof connector for linking one pipe or cable to another without nut threads or bolted flanges.

The story is worth a read and is an especially pointed, albeit esoteric, lesson for inventors who are contemplating approaching a company or others regarding licensing their technology. 

Patently-O also does its standard bang-up job of reporting the Fed. Cir. opinion as well.



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Posted by Douglas Sorocco at 09:51 PM.
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