Posts Tagged: "united inventors association"

John Calvert, A Champion for Indepenent Inventors

John Calvert, a twenty-four year veteran of the USPTO, retired in June 2014. If you are in the independent inventor or product commercialization communities you undoubtedly know Calvert. After starting as a patent examiner, in 1999 he started working with independent inventors. He would ultimately be in charge of the independent inventor outreach efforts of the USPTO by the time…

A Conversation with New UIA Executive Director John Calvert

Many within the independent inventor community are well acquainted with John Calvert. Calvert started out working for the United States Patent and Trademark Office as a patent examiner, but by the time he retired twenty-four years later in he was in charge of the independent inventor outreach efforts of the USPTO. I have known him for a long time and he is a true friend and champion for the independent inventor community has had over the years. He is also the new Executive Director of the United Inventors Association, where he will continue to promote, assist and educate inventors for years to come.

Hook, Line & Sinker: USPTO Warns About Invention Scams

On Thursday, November 4, 2010, I attended the 15th Annual Inventors Conference at the USPTO.  In my article Reporting from the 15th Annual USPTO Inventors Conference I discussed the morning sessions and lunch speaker, for day one of the conference.  After lunch, and a panel discussion of the morning speakers, the attendees of the conference went into two sets of…

Lots of Support at Patent Office Three Track Public Meeting

All in all I would characterize the mood of the PTO officials I spoke with as up-beat and the mood of the stakeholders in attendance was generally positive, but with reservations about the mechanics of Track 3. After the event I too would be upbeat if I were among the senior ranks at the USPTO. Those aspects that were viewed as negative or needing more work or clarification seemed few, were identified over and over again and should be addressable. That being the case it seems the majority of the proposal is acceptable and the community remains hungry for these types of creative initiatives, which sadly is all we have given that Congress continues to be AWOL on even relatively meaningless reforms, let alone reforms that could actually do some real good.

UIA Letter to Congress on Patent Reform, Kappos & First to Invent

The UIA sent a letter to Senator Leahy and Congressman John Conyers. The UIA hopes what is most newsworthy about the letter is their appreciation of Kappos’ outreach to the independent inventor community. First to file may dominate the news though. Did you know that the mean cost of an interference through the completion of the preliminary motions phase is a whopping $417,130. The mean total cost of the entire interference is $656,306. What independent inventors can afford that?