As 2008 comes to an end, I want to thank all of my readers for continuing to return to this blog. In particular, I want to say a special “thank you” to those who have posted public comments and those who have contacted me privately via email. I am glad that so many of you find this blog useful.
I am winding down my blog posts for 2008 with some of what I have found to be the more interesting patent/invention related quotes that I have come across over the years. I hope that you too find them of interest. Here is to a happy, peaceful 2009.
“… the primary purpose of our patent laws is not the creation of private fortunes for the owners of patents but is to ‘promote the progress of science and useful arts.“
Justice John Clarke
Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Co.
The Supreme Court of the United States, 1917
“Doubt is the father of invention”
Galileo Galilei, Astronomer and Mathematician, 1564-1642
“The specification and claims of a patent, particularly if the invention be at all complicated, constitute one of the most difficult legal instruments to draw with accuracy.“
Justice Henry B. Brown
Topliff v. Topliff
The Supreme Court of the United States, 1892
“The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.”
Sir Winston Churchill, Speech at Harvard University, 1943
“To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.”
Thomas Edison, inventor and businessman, 1847-1931
“It is the patent agents and attorneys that play this very significant role in the training of new examiners.“
Anonymous USPTO Examiner
Just a Patent Examiner Blog, 2008
“A new gadget that lasts only five minutes is worth more than an immortal work that bores everyone.”
Francis Picabia, French painter and poet, 1878–1953
“Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent …“
Section 101 of Title 35 of the United States Code
“Excluded from such patent protection are laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas.“
Justice William Rehnquist
Diamond v. Diehr,
The Supreme Court of the United States, 1981
“The object of the patent law is to secure inventors what they have actually invented or discovered, and it ought not to be defeated by a too strict and technical adherence to the letter of the statute or by the application of artificial rules of interpretation.“
Justice Henry B. Brown
Topliff v. Topliff
The Supreme Court of the United States, 1892
“The patent laws [reward] innovation with a temporary monopoly . . .. The monopoly is a property right; and like any property right, its boundaries should be clear. This clarity is essential to promote progress, because it enables efficient investment in innovation. A patent holder should know what he owns, and the public should know what he does not.“
Justice Anthony Kennedy
Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyokabushiki Co.
The Supreme Court of the United States, 2002
“[The patent system] added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius in discovery and production of new and useful things.“
Abraham Lincoln
16th President of the United States
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.“
Charles Duell, Commissioner of US Patent Office, 1899
“Applicants come in and ask for the sun, moon and stars and they say: ‘Let the Patent Office tell me what is and isn’t patentable,’ … It’s a burden on the system.“
John Doll
U.S. Commissioner for Patents, 2008
“Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody else has thought.”
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, 1726
“Intellectual property is the currency of the new global economy.“
The Congressional Record, October 29,1999
If you like this post, why not grab the RSS feed or subscribe by email and get the latest updates delivered straight to your news reader or inbox?
© 2008, Michael E. Kondoudis
The Law Office of Michael E. Kondoudis
DC Patent Attorney
www.mekiplaw.com