This post was mentioned on Twitter by ipwatchdog: Obscure Patent: Doll Urn – from the “you have to be kidding me” file. On top of that, it was issued in 10 months! – http://bit.ly/5b62kh...

Dogs http://www.custompeturns.com/dogurns.html
Cats http://www.starlegacynetwork.com/detail/urns_pets/2884_5_6/urn_detail_2884_5_6.html,
and people http://www.creativecremains.com/urns.html

This one appears patentable simply because no one has assembled all of those elements together. Sure, someone has stuffed dirt, maybe even ashes, into a Russian nesting doll. But each of those limitations has probably not been assembled at one time.

You can’t tell if it will sell, if it’s marketable, etc without experience. Have you worked in a funeral home? Neither have I. Bet the guy who put together the baby bootie urn design wishes he had a design patent. Puppy and kitty urns may have been more lucrative because people are more likely to go outside the box with those. Cremains are getting more common and people are using more personal containers for their loved ones, Dogs , Cats , and people .

I also have to agree with the slow art unit, low hanging fruit comments above.

Best,

Mike

There’s not as many applications in the funeral urn art as in the mainframe computer art and would you want the examiner who normally handles funeral urns to handle the mainframe computer overflow applications?

Each examiner has specific subclasses assigned. While they may take some overflow within their class(es), it is rare to handle cases from outside the class(es) assigned to that technical group.

When entering the office every new examiner wants to examine golf clubs and tennis rackets, but someone has to examine coffins and funeral urns.