Word: patentable
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...complex field of patents, everyday products have often inspired memorable decisions. The shredded-wheat biscuit became a courtroom cause celebre in 1938, when the Supreme Court set precedent by ruling that Kellogg could make the same biscuit as Nabisco, whose patent had expired and whose link to the shredded-wheat name had faded. The pink color of Pepto-Bismol was at issue in 1959, when a federal court in New York ruled that the pink had a "functional" purpose and therefore could be copied. Last week the Supreme Court handed down a decision of such broad impact that it overturned...
...originator of the pole lamp. Stiff el's sales sagged after Sears, in 1957, brought out an identical pole lamp that sold for about half the price; the company took the matter to court. A federal court found Sears guilty of unfair competition, not because of a patent infringement but under an Illinois common law that forbids exact copying of another's goods. In fact, ruled the court, Stiffel's pole lamp was not really unique enough to be protected by patent at all; it then invalidated Stiffel's patent...
...Supreme Court went a step farther. It affirmed the lower court's in validation of Stiffel's patent, but ruled that Sears was erroneously blamed for unfair competition. Its reasoning: once the patent on a product no longer exists, anyone has the right to make an exact copy-and should not be restrained from doing so by state unfair-competition laws. The court thus overruled all the states' protective laws, except against outright fraud, and declared open season on any products not protected by patents or trade names. Consumer groups hailed the ruling as heralding lower prices...
...patent, which grants a person or company the exclusive right to an invention for 17 years, is a vital industrial weapon. Patent logjams can slow research and development-a company is reluctant to go ahead until it knows that it is protected-and result in costly litigation. Only three weeks ago, after 17 years of hearings, examinations and appeals, Sperry Rand was finally granted a patent for the first logic system or basic system of its electronic computer...
...patent office still gets bids for such individualistic inventions as eyeglasses for chickens and coffins with periscopes. And the little man, despite the predominance of the large corporation can still score. A mechanical clam catcher dreamed up a few years back by a onetime airplane pilot has grown into a $5,000,000 business around Maryland's Chesapeake...