| General Fiction posted April 19, 2024 | Chapters: |
...36 37 -38- 39... 
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A visit with a patent attorney
A chapter in the book What We See
What We See - Chapter 34
by Jim Wile
| Background A high school teacher wrongly accused of sexual assault reinvents his life. |
Recap of Chapter 33: Alan goes home after finding out that everything pertaining to his invention, including the hard drive from his computer, the physical files, and the first prototype of the actual glasses from the filing cabinet, has been stolen, and he tells Ginnie about it. She commiserates with him.
Tommy comes downstairs, and together they watch the videotape from the hidden camcorder, which has recorded the theft in its entirety. Alan is burning now and issues an expletive that both Ginnie and Tommy also add to. With the tension now broken, they realize that all is not lost because Alan has a routine backup on an external hard drive of all of his data, plus they have the newer prototype. They also have the video, which Alan can show the police, to document the theft. He decides to call them right away to report it.
Chapter 34
We arrived at the law offices of Carmody and Hayworth this morning at 9:00. Since Ginnie would be working nights this week, she was able to come with me to the meeting with the patent attorney.
Harold Carmody was a small, bookish-looking fellow of perhaps 60. His spacious office was one of old-fashioned elegance with dark wood paneling on the walls, a large, ornate mahogany desk in the middle of the floor, facing the door, and two comfortable armchairs facing the desk in front.
After introductions, he offered us a beverage, which we both declined, and sat behind his desk while we took the two chairs. “Now then, Mr. Phelps, it sounds like you’ve invented something for which you would like to receive a patent. Are you at all familiar with the process of obtaining a patent?”
“Please call me Alan, Mr. Carmody. I have done some reading about it, but I quickly got over my head, and I felt I needed legal advice. I believe this invention may be quite valuable. But here’s the thing: Something has come up since I made the appointment with you, which I think will be the first order of business before I seek a patent. The invention and all supporting documentation of it have been stolen by an employee who works for me.”
“Oh, good grief! I'm so sorry to hear that,” said Mr. Carmody, and he shook his head. “That’s an entirely different matter. Now we’re talking about intellectual property theft. Do you have proof of the theft.”
“Yes. I want to tell you two important things. First, I have a complete backup of most of what was stolen. He actually stole the hard drive out of my computer, but I make weekly backups of that, and I made a backup just a day before the theft. I also have a more advanced version of the stolen device in my possession and that I’ve brought today. Second, I have a videocassette of the theft produced by a camcorder I had secreted in my workroom. The tape clearly shows the theft in progress.”
“I have to say, you are the ideal client, Alan. It sounds as though you might have been anticipating something of this nature. Indeed, that’s an extremely fortunate preparation I have seldom seen from clients. In light of this, I think you should proceed immediately with filing a provisional patent application before the thief attempts to.
“And what if he manages to file first?”
“Then we can petition to have it overturned if we can prove that it had been stolen from you. But that’s subject to several things that I will get into with you later. May I ask what you plan to do with the device?”
“Yes, I was planning to sell the plans to a medical manufacturing company to manufacture it.”
“By selling them the patent or by licensing the usage rights?”
“Uh…”
“Alright, we can discuss that later. Could you show me the device and describe what it does?”
I did just that and also let him try it out himself.
“Alan, this is a very impressive invention, and if you choose to hire me to represent you, I think we should begin the application for a provisional patent immediately. It will make things much simpler if we can get you patent pending status first.”
“Mr. Carmody,” said Ginnie, “was the theft a civil or a criminal matter, and, if criminal, could we also bring a civil suit against the thief?”
“These are good questions, Mrs. Phelps, without simple answers. Generally, theft is considered a criminal offense, but unless restitution is made as part of the penalty, you could additionally sue the thief for damages in a civil suit. As a criminal offense, you must consider that the theft of the physical devices—the hard drive and the invention—may only amount to a misdemeanor because of the dollar value of the stolen physical property.
“What’s more important is the theft of the intellectual property, which is usually handled in a civil suit, as there was no direct interaction with the victim. An important consideration in this case, though, is that unless there is a patent, copyright, or trademark, the intellectual property is not legally protected. That may seem very unfair, but it’s difficult to win an intellectual property case without one of the means of legal protection in place.
“With all that said, however, it’s possible that your husband’s invention might qualify as a ‘trade secret,’ and as such, it may be protected under existing law. This would need to be explored further, though.”
Ginnie and I looked at each other and frowned. This may not be as straightforward as I’d hoped. “So, what would our next step be?”
“We would need to sign a representation agreement to give me the authority to act on your behalf, to lay out the fee structure, and to state your rights as a client. Would you like me to give the two of you a moment to discuss this before proceeding?”
“That would be fine. We’ll need just a couple of minutes, I should think.”
“Alright. I’m going to get a cup of coffee, and I will return in a few minutes.”
“What do you think of him?” I asked Ginnie after he stepped out.
“He seems very knowledgeable and professional to me. I actually understood what he said too.”
“Trent Lyons recommended him highly. Let’s give him the go-ahead to prepare the agreement. If it’s just too much money, we can reevaluate, but I have a feeling it would be money well spent.”
“I agree.”
Harold Carmody returned in a few minutes, and I gave him the go-ahead to prepare the representation agreement. He told us it was a standard form and would only take a few minutes for his secretary to prepare. In the meantime, I gave him some of the details about how the theft occurred and told him how I would be meeting with a detective this afternoon. He warned me that the police might not expend a great deal of effort on this because the dollar value of the hard drive and the prototype was not very large, and without a patent, intellectual property theft may be difficult to prove. It’s simply a fact that this type of theft isn’t treated the same as physical theft by the police.
There’s always the hope that I will get my patent application in before Warren does, and then there just isn’t much of a crime to worry about.
In a few more minutes, the secretary brought in the agreement to look over. The billed rates, though steep, were reasonable, I guess, and hopefully we wouldn’t need too many hours of his service. I glanced at Ginnie, who nodded. I signed the agreement then, and Harold Carmody officially became my attorney.
He also gave me the provisional patent application to fill out for submission to the US Patent and Trademark Office and asked me to overnight it to him so he could check it over for any revisions that may be necessary. Now it will be a race against the clock to get the patent application prepared quickly and submitted before Warren does. If I’m successful, this would stop any possible action on Warren’s part to take advantage of his theft.
Back home later that afternoon, a police detective came to the store. He inspected the computer and the filing cabinet which I had left undisturbed. I then provided him with Warren’s name, address, and contact information, the tape of the theft, and receipts for the hard drive and for many of the parts that were used in the prototype so that he could determine a value for the theft. As Mr. Carmody had warned me, this perhaps wouldn’t even amount to the threshold value for felony theft.
I also explained to the detective that I did not yet have a patent on the invention but that I had seen a lawyer just this morning and it was now in the works. He wrote all this down and took the originals of all the receipts and the videotape, which he promised to return to me when copies had been made.
He didn’t leave me with the impression this crime would be taken particularly seriously. I would still really like to get the stolen hard drive back. Although the drive itself isn’t worth much, the ideas on it potentially are. In addition to the glasses, there were a number of other ideas documented on the drive for other devices. They aren’t ready for patenting yet, though, and I didn’t want to take any chances that Warren could begin to develop them on his own. You can’t patent an idea; you must have something tangible to show that the idea is feasible. Things are very much up in the air right now.
That night, I began filling out the provisional patent application form Carmody had given me. The first thing was to come up with a name for the invention, which I had not done up to this point. They are glasses (or spectacles) that read text and talk to the wearer. I thought of calling them “Talking Textacles,” but I thought this would be too ripe for abuse. In the end, I called them “Text to Speech Readers.”
I also needed to provide the background for and summary of the invention, detailed drawings, and future plans for it that I would continue to work on, such as further miniaturization so they could be one self-contained unit.
Much of this I had already documented, so it was not difficult to pull it all together into one submission. Still, it took two days of burning the midnight oil to complete the application and mail it to Mr. Carmody to check over. Once he felt it was complete, he would submit it to the US Patent and Trademark Office for me.
 Recognized |
CHARACTERS
Alan Phelps: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old high school physics and natural science teacher in Grantham, Indiana in 1985.
Archie: David's orange tabby cat
Tommy Boardman: Alan's 12-year-old next door neighbor. He is dyslexic like Alan.
Ginnie Boardman: Tommy's mother. She is 30 years old and is an ICU nurse.
Artie Intintoli: Tommy's friend who also lives on Loser St.
Ida Beeman: Alan's first customer. She is a nice old lady who lives on Loser Street.
Leroy Beeman: Miss Ida's grandson and Tommy's friend.
Mrs. Dunbar: Tommy's 7th grade English teacher.
Callie Lyons: A nice girl in Tommy's class at school.
Trent Lyons: Callie's father, who is a lawyer.
Warren Meyers: Alan's assistant in the repair shop.
Abby St. Claire: Callie's cousin who is a math major with an engineering minor at Penn State University.
Harold Carmody: A patent and infringement attorney.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. Alan Phelps: The narrator of the story. He is a 28-year-old high school physics and natural science teacher in Grantham, Indiana in 1985.
Archie: David's orange tabby cat
Tommy Boardman: Alan's 12-year-old next door neighbor. He is dyslexic like Alan.
Ginnie Boardman: Tommy's mother. She is 30 years old and is an ICU nurse.
Artie Intintoli: Tommy's friend who also lives on Loser St.
Ida Beeman: Alan's first customer. She is a nice old lady who lives on Loser Street.
Leroy Beeman: Miss Ida's grandson and Tommy's friend.
Mrs. Dunbar: Tommy's 7th grade English teacher.
Callie Lyons: A nice girl in Tommy's class at school.
Trent Lyons: Callie's father, who is a lawyer.
Warren Meyers: Alan's assistant in the repair shop.
Abby St. Claire: Callie's cousin who is a math major with an engineering minor at Penn State University.
Harold Carmody: A patent and infringement attorney.
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