#Patent

[ The Editor: The Firearm Blog readers are an innovative group. We regularly get email from readers asking us for give advice on how to proceed with patenting thier gun-related inventions. I am very pleased to present the first part in a series of posts that demystify the subject of patents. The posts are written by “Your Patent Friend”, a practicing patent attorney. Please note the disclaimer below. ].

Earlier this year South Korea made news by deploying two experimental sentry robots that were able to shoot at perceived threats without human intervention. A few days ago the UTSPO granted Samsung Techwin, a subsidiary of South Korean giant Samsung, a patent for an “ Automatic shooting mechanism and robot“.

A patent application has recently been published for a novel cartridge case design. The inventor proposes a three part case with a metal base, spiraled polymer center and brass or plastic head.

A patent has been granted for the design of a toy double barrel shotgun which produces smoke when the cartridges are ejected. The idea of giving a child a toy that produces smoke by heating oil does not appeal to me!

Smith & Wesson have just applied for a patent on their AR-15-patterned .22 rifle, the M&P15-22.

Magpul has just filed a patent application (#20100126053) for a quad stack AR-15 compatible magazine.

Timothy Lindsay (USA) and Renaud Kerbrat (Switzerland) are listed as the inventors on the recently published patent application #20100077643. The patent describes a new pistol recoil mechanism that is similar to is the mechanism used by the TDI KRISS.

Wilsons Gunshop (aka. Wilson Combat) has just had two patent applications approved. Both attribute Douglas D. Olson as the inventor.

On the 24th of this month the USPTO approved Magpul’s patent application for the Magpul self-leveling AR-15 magazine follower. Patent number 7621063 lists the inventors as Richard M. Fitzpatrick, Michael T. Mayberry and Eric S. Nakayama.

Carl Walther GmbH has filed for a patent on a mechanism which prevents a pistol being disassembled if a round is chambered. It works by using the extractor to manipulate a pin which prevents the disassembly.

War games just got more fun. Raytheon has applied for a patent on a simulated M18 Claymore Anti-Personal Mine for the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) training system.

The US Naval Air Warfare Center funded a patent application, published two weeks ago, with the innocuous title of “Military Training Device”. The device turns out to be a suicide vest simulator for the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) training system.

The IBM bullet dodging patent story, which originally broke on this blog after being discovered by reader Daniel E. Watters, created quite a lot of noise on the internet.

Noah at Danger Room noticed that the patent has since been withdrawn. It seems odd to go to all that work writing a patent, paying lawyers, only to withdraw it after news of its existance hits the internet days later. Anyone know if this happens frequently?

I had already used pat2pdf.org to convert the patent to a PDF. So here is patent number 07484451 hosted on scribd for your viewing pleasure 🙂

The lesson here is that you cannot deleted stuff off the internet, someone, somewhere, has a copy.