The Paper Hole Punch

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Kellemora
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The Paper Hole Punch

Post by Kellemora »

I jumped back in because of Googles opening page.

They are saying the Hole Punch was invented 131 years ago, the patent for which issued November 14, 1886 to Friedrich Soennecken of Germany.

Although this took place in Germany. Their patent would not be recognized as valid due to the fact it is a patent on prior art which is not allowed here.

Also misleading is giving the credit to Benjamin Smith of Massachusetts for his patent issued February 24, 1885 on the Conductors Punch, used for punching a hole in the paper train tickets.

The problem here is, Benjamin Smith did not invent the Punch, he only invented and Improvement for the punches they already had in use. His invention is a holder to retain the clippings made by the existing punches.
His reason for the invention was to stop travelers from replacing the punched hole and reusing the tickets.

To me, the fact Benjamin Smith invented an improvement for an existing item, already in use long enough for there to be problems, means that no patent for a paper punch is valid, because the device itself would be considered prior art.

There were thousands of items in use when the patent office issued its first patent on July 31, 1790, which made all existing items already invented but not patented, prior art.

Unfortunately, I see this a lot. Later inventors getting credit for something they never really invented. However, in most cases, the person named as the inventor is the one who took to the public en mass.
In more recent years, for a common man to obtain a patent is more often than not nearly impossible due to the high cost.
I know, been there, done that!
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yogi
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by yogi »

I did a Google query for "hole punch inventor" and got about 8430 results for dozens upon dozens of different hole punch patents. Prior art is cited in most if not all those patent claims, but that did not stop anyone from being granted the patent for their particular variation of the hole punch. I can see why it would be very expensive to do a patent search these days.
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Kellemora
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

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The only thing valid in a Patent, despite all the verbosity elsewhere on the page, is what is stated in the Claims.

There is another type of patent called a Design Patent, of which, any slight variation on a design can be patented.
As an example: Almost every car tire has a Design Patent covering something about the tire, often the tread design or modification to an existing design.
But even a Design Patent has specifications as to what makes it different from other similar items.

The times have changed considerably from when the Patent Office first opened.
It has gone from showing a working model to them, to having all the research for prior art completed and mentioned in the application. And you are right, this part alone costs big bucks. Each of my patents cost well over 10 grand each to bring it up to submission level, and in some cases, a bit more to handle the rejections, which they always do a couple of times right off the bat.

The sad thing is, for folks like myself, a Patent is totally useless.
It costs about 150 thousand dollars to defend a patent.
And if you don't defend it against the small infringers you cannot recoup your expenses from, you cannot go only after the larger infringers with the mega bucks either.
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yogi
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by yogi »

That makes me wonder what it cost Apple vs Qualcomm to battle it out.
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Kellemora
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

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It's amazing they were even able to get a Patent on Software.
The rules regarding same are so strict, almost nothing is covered.

However, the copyrights on same can drive one to drinking, and into the poorhouse.

The XML language has been in use for numerous years.
Along comes Mickey$oft and they take a copy of XML, make a couple of changes to it to louse up for everybody, and then claim it as their OWN DOCX language. They only changed a few characters, all the rest are the same as XML.
You could see this not to long ago when someone posted something using copy and paste from a DOCX document.
An Apostrophe would appear as a Black Diamond with a ? mark inside. The apostrophe is one on the codes they changed from XML to proprietary DOCX.
I've yet to find anyone who can understand or explain how they could get by with plagiarizing XML and making their own polluted version proprietary.

It really reaped havoc in the publishing industry when folks began submitting DOCX files instead of DOC files.
However, the publishers soon learned which XML characters Mickey$oft BUTCHERED, and wrote programs to put the correct XML character in their place after scanning a DOCX file for them.

Mickey$oft messing with standards has been like that as long as I can remember.
My early websites had to be written in such a way that it directed IE users to a differently formatted html page than all the other browsers.
Like most of us, rather than trying to figure out what worked in IE, we simply removed the features that didn't work in IE.
The only headaches were when IE did not recognize standard html codes, and had their own proprietary code for same.
You may remember those days with redoing html for IE users?
I'm sure many IT departments went crazy trying to figure out their DOCX codes to fix them so they looked right when someone pasted a DOCX instead of a DOC file.
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by yogi »

The way I learned about javascript was by trying to make the HTML i used work in all the popular browsers. While that was convoluted, you can't imagine what it's like trying to make a web page responsive to all the various mobile devices out there these days. Oh wait. You CAN and have done that. LOL

While MIcrosoft is a PITA, their motives are perfectly understandable from a competition point of view. They earn a living selling their proprietary software. I don't blame Microsoft as much as I blame the people who support them. There is no reason for business to standardize on Office Suite and docx formatting other than it's convenient. Standards be damned.
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Kellemora
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by Kellemora »

I tried to learn php and gave up. My goal was to use php to generate the html pages from a database.
Way over my head. In fact, simple Bash is way over my head.
That may sound odd since at one time, I could make Basic do things it was never intended to do.
Trouble is, most of what I wrote only worked on the 6502 microprocessor. I used a lot of peeks pokes and calls to achieve what seemed impossible to do at the time.
Then I had to learn to make my programs work on an 8080a. Some I did, but most I could not, because the processor didn't have the features I needed.
Took a look at C and C++, bought several expensive books. They made great paperweights before I turned them into mulch for the garden, hi hi...
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yogi
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by yogi »

Like you, I started programming in assembly language and then graduated to an interpreted language, BASIC. The ideas behind programming are universal, but each language has it's own set of instructions for specific purposes. If you can master C++, you should be able to deal with any modern programming language. I understand why you can't, but you paid your dues. It's time to relax and let the bit heads do the programming for us. I'm happy with markup. Actually, HTML is getting pretty sophisticated too along with CSS.
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Kellemora
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by Kellemora »

I hear ya Yogi!
All of my webpages I hand coded myself in html5/css
But with this mobile-friendly stuff, it was easier for me to use a prebuilt css this last go around.
Bootstrap.min.css is what I used, but with my own added lines.
I wish I knew what I could take out from it without messing it up, because I'm only using about 2% of what it can do.
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yogi
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by yogi »

Bootstrap is a framework, meaning that it is like Linux in some respects. There is a kernel and a billion or two mods that have been added onto it for common tasks. You should be able to look over the code to see what you are using, then delete the modules you never will have a use for. I did it in reverse when I looked into responsiveness. I looked at the routines built into Bootstrap and simply copied them into my markup/css. What didn't work outright was easily fixable. Your web site(s) are way more complex than anything I did and perhaps you can't delete modules willy-nilly. In any case, it would take a lot of time to extract only what you use. Why fix it if it's not broke?
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Kellemora
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Re: The Paper Hole Punch

Post by Kellemora »

Hmm, I didn't think my websites were complicated at all.
There is a lot I would like to do, but didn't know how, although I think I can now using Bootstrap.

I did try taking just the parts I was using and they didn't work. So some parts must be linked to other parts.
To keep from having problems, I just let the whole thing load their css to each person who connects.
At least I think that's how it works?

I haven't had time to do much of anything except work, so have not changed anything or added to my websites in over a year or two now. Stopping adding to my blog page also, back in 2015. Maybe after I get another book published, I'll have to start working on it again, because my readers do come to see what I'm up to, or did, hi hi...
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