POSSE HOT LINE toll free 1-877-926-1556 or in Baton Rouge, La 926-1556
Email any questions to Bill at wyg@cox.net I'd love to hear from any inventors
Headmaster of Patentlessons.com Bill Guess call: 1-225-9275610
Mini Lesson
NOTE: not only is this lesson free, it's also the most imporant! You're not expected to blitz through this lesson and test. This is very important material and you should consider it as such. Learn it thoroughly.
Also note: sometimes we use the generic phrase "patent office" mainly because it drips with romance. Technically there is only one The Patent Office and it's in Wales (UK). (we'll show you how to deal with them also).
This lesson will be repeated in lesson 1. Take the quiz at the end. If you do miserably on the quiz, repeat the lesson and take it again till you get every question right. If you like we'll email you another test that you should ace the first time. The correct answers may be found via a link at the end of the quiz.
Note: Inventors are drawn to the application and the filing like moths to a flame. Trying to write and file a patent application without learning the pertinent laws and regulations is not the way to go. We tried doing it that way. That way doesn't work. If we can learn this stuff, you can learn this stuff, and if you can learn this lesson, you can learn it all. Lets get started.
Patentability...........the legal requirements.
A. The Object: determining if an invention is patentable.
A great many inventions that receive patents never earn their inventors anything. We're not worried about that now. What we want to know is: what makes an invention patentable over those that aren't according to U.S. law?
In other words if I apply for one, am I likely to receive a patent regarding this invention?
So, what are the qualities of an invention that make it legally patentable.
B. The rules of the game:
There would be no patents if governments didn't provide for them.
Patents have been around for well over 500 years (we'll look at the fascinating history and theory of patents in lesson 1).
Time for a little civics course to see how each branch of the U.S. government deals with inventors. It all begins with the Constitution.
The Constitution maps out three branches of Government: the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. It also requires congress to write, enact and maintain patent laws.
Legislative Executive Branch Judicial
Makes the patent laws Runs the Patent office Federal Courts deal with patent squabbles
Jon Dudas heads the *United States Patent and Trademark Office and answers to
Sec. of Commerce.
A little U.S. Patent History: Presidents and patents
Thomas
Jefferson in his duties as the first Secretary of State examined the first U.S.
patent application. Samuel Hopkins received the first U.S. Patent in 1790
for a device and method for producing pot ash. Pot ash (an impure form of
potassium carbonate) was necessary in producing soap and glass amongst other
things. In fact potassium gets it's name from pot ash. While a great
many inventors first patents are not successful this one was. The soap
that pot ash produced was necessary for the production of wool and the U.S.
exported millions of dollars worth of pot ash to England to the delight of
Samuel Hopkins. U.S. patents till 1839 were unnumbered.
George
Washington along with his Attorney General signed the first U.S. Patent to Hopkins.
Abraham Lincoln
is the only U.S. President ever to have received a patent. Lincoln
invented a sort of life preserver for boats. The idea was that if a boat
gets stuck in
shallow water inflatable bags could be shoved beneath the water line on the sides of
the boat then blown up lifting the boat off shallow stretches of river. U.S.
patent #6469. Never went into production. Lincoln's patent model
may be found at the Smithsonian Institute. Lincoln gave up after his first
patent got stuck without a buyer, possibly because he used a patent attorney and
didn't like the price (the gov. fee was $5.00 but patent lawyers at the time typically
charged around $250, that was a lot of money for 1849, to put it into
perspective, seventy years later a Model T Ford cost $295.). Like
almost all unsuccessful inventors, before and since, Lincoln was "one and done".
Probably because of the lawyer's bill. Pity.
Andrew
Johnson signed the first "numbered" U.S. patent #1. (before he was
President)
The U.S. Constitution states in Article 1, section 8, clause 8 that one purpose of the legislature is:
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
This is known as the "patent and copyright clause" and states the rationale for a patent system. The government is counting on commerce involving successful inventions, and the infectious inspiration which hopefully will encourage other inventors. In similar fashion, a prospector is able to steak out a claim for federal land containing gold deposits and similarly the government will grant him or her a patent* to the land, thereby encouraging other prospectors to hopefully search out and find .....more gold. * establishes and grants ownership of the land to the patentee (the miner).
OK, so Congress, having been charged by the constitution to take care of inventors, has given us The Patent Act or as it's known in U.S. law: Title 35. Other titles include: Title 14: Coast Guard ; Title 11(thats eleven not 2): Bankruptcy; Title 18, amongst other things, lists federal crimes. A guy in Oklahoma walked into a police station and said he had two unregistered machine guns and wanted to know what they were going to do about it. He got busted and convicted for violating U.S.C. 18 § 922 (0) [that's an o not a zero]. This is the federal title: 18, section: 922 and, in parenthesis the clause: (o) that makes possessing a machine gun illegal. He appealed his conviction all the way to the Supreme Court without success. I guess they showed him.
Title 35 is subdivided into parts, chapters, and sections. In patent law, unlike bankruptcy, it's the sections rather than the chapters that we hear about most often.
In Title 35, Part II (thats 2, not eleven) Chapter 10:
Section 100 provides some legal definitions.
Section 101 lists the statutory classes of inventions for which the government will grant a patent and are as follows with my definitions and examples following. (Think of the statutory classes as being like the velvet rope blocking the entrance to an exclusive nightclub. If your invention can't fit into at least one of the statutory classes you don't get past the rope and you don't get into the patent "club". Or as the line goes in Star Wars: "We don't allow their kind in here.). One other thing, section 101 also states that an invention must be "new and useful".
The five statutory classes are:
Process: doing something.
examples: toasting bread, re-entering the earth's atmosphere;
Machine: something that can do something
examples: a pop up toaster, a space shuttle plus all the subordinate machines contained respectively therein (respectively therein are a couple of obnoxious, though very handy, patent words you'll practice in Lesson 3,);
Manufacture: something made by man
examples: a pop up toaster, a space shuttle plus all the pieces and parts respectively thereof (ditto above);
Composition of Matter: substance made by man
examples: bread dough, the ceramic material used to make the shuttle re-entry tiles;
New Use: doing something new with something that isn't new.
example: let's say you discover that rising bread dough when placed on top of a genetically bald human head stimulates hair growth while in contact. If you discovered that, chances are you could patent it. In this case you have, in the normal sense of the word, invented nothing. You have discovered a "new use" for bread dough.
Those are the 5 statutory classes. Why are they called statutory classes?
Because they are the subject of a statute, in particular section 101 of U.S. law: title 35 (also written as U.S.C. 35 §101). It's like statutory rape. If a 14 year old seduces a 41 year old, in lots of states the actions of the latter is defined legally as rape despite literal contradiction. That Latourneau woman from Seattle was convicted of child rape.
In California's penal code (criminal laws): section 211 provides laws against armed robbery. When inspector Callahan, in the first Dirty Harry movie, notices an idling vehicle in front of a bank, who's suspicious character/driver has made a pile of cigarette butts on the ground outside of his car window, Callahan goes into a nearby diner for a hot dog. After making his order he tells the owner/chef de cuisine to place a call to headquarters and to tell the phone operator that at the address of the bank "there's a 211 in progress" he adds "make sure to tell them it's 'in progress'". He takes a bite of his hot dog then all hell breaks loose.
OK, back to the statutory classes.
What doesn't fit into those huge classes?
Literary works, mnemonic devices, or pure mathematics are examples.
Therefore, you can patent a new kind of book (physical thing, a manufacture) but you cannot patent a new kind of novel (lesbian nun/serial killer murder thriller, and as novel a novel as that might be it's not patentable).
Likewise, you can patent a new kind of calculator but you cannot patent a new kind of calculation. This area has gotten more than a little gray with the advent of computers and the supercharged mathematics (software) that control them, with the control of something being the prime argument for patentability. That control is defined and claimed at the U.S. patent office as a process.
Let's look a little closer at the "new
use" class.
This image courtesy officemuseum.com
See this thing. In 1875 Thomas Edison patented it. It was known as the "electric pen". It was a hand-held pen-like device with an outer tube and a reciprocating (goes in and out) motor driven needle. The idea was to "write" on a piece of stiff paper poking little holes as you go. Then, using that piece of paper as a stencil in order to make copies by rolling ink over it, "printing" on a blank sheet of paper positioned underneath. It never really caught on as such. However, the A. B. Dick Company of Chicago liked the idea of the punched paper and licensed it from Edison. They ultimately developed the Edison Mimeograph* Machine and process, using a typewriter to create the stencil. Mimeograph machines became hugely successful and ruled until the advent of Chester Carlson's brilliant invention the photocopier. Much more about Chester Carlson in lesson 10.
Mimeograph at one time was a registered trademark "®" but became so commonplace as to render it a generic term as was also the case with "corn flakes, dry ice, escalator or trampoline" and more.
So, Edison's electric pen did only marginally well as a copying device, it did, however, make one hell of a sweet tattoo rig! And that's exactly what went through the inventive mind of tattoo artist Sam O'Reilly when he held one at a lower east side office supply in New York City in the late eighteen hundreds.
O'Reilly had heard about Edison's machine and wanted to get one to perforate drawings in order to transfer art work onto the surface of the skin of his customers to act as a guide. Except that when Sam O'Reilly held the machine, flipped on the switch and saw the needle going in and out, the world stopped turning for a second.
Samuel O'Reilly, in one huge leap for mankind took tattooing from the Paleolithic Age to the age of electricity. Since O'Reilly had to add an ink reservoir it technically was not a "new use" patent, but it sure was close. Sam O'Reilly's machine made 3000 punctures per minute compared to 200 max as with the previous stone age tapping method, plus it was held like a pen and not like a tack hammer as before, allowing for much better control and therefore, much better tattoos. And he did receive a patent for his invention/discovery in 1891.
This image came from tattoomuseum.com
owned by a Dutchman named "Hanky Panky", sadly it's off the web
Samuel O'Reilly's Patented Tattoo Machine. Look familiar? If I had been Edison, I would have gotten a tattoo of it, with it. That would have made a great photo-op and for some serious belly laughs when he was on those camping trips with Ford and Firestone. One more thing about tattoo machines and then we'll move on. The Electric pen and the O'Reilly tattoo machine use an electric motor powering a cam driven needle. In fact, the Electric pen was the first machine in the world to use an electric motor. Edison wasn't satisfied with his first electric pen and designed and patented another. This one simplified things by using an electromagnet and a spring loaded lever that drove the needle. By engaging the master switch the electromagnet was energized and pulled down the lever and needle. Once the lever hit bottom the circuit was broken via a secondary switch to the electromagnet which in turn released the lever. At the top of the cycle everything repeated over and over at a blurring speed until the user "turned off" the master switch. Virtually all modern tattoo machines are constructed this way, Edison's second design!
Edison's
second design
modern tattoo machine
Question: What advantage does the modern machine have over Edison's second patent?
Again: Section 101 of Title 35 of U.S. Code lists the classes of inventions for which the government will grant a patent.
Section 102 of Title 35 deals with the novelty requirement. Actually in section 101 prior to listing the classes we see the word "new" before process, machine, etc so novelty is understood. Section 102 expands on the conditions of novelty, in other words, how can the novelty of an invention be denied, lost, or claimed by one when two inventors go after the same patent? In this mini lesson we'll only look at one way an inventor can loose novelty regarding his or her invention.
The "on sale" bar portion of Section 102 states that if an inventor (or anybody else) sells or, as the statute is also interpreted, offers for sale, his invention more that one year prior to filing for a patent on that invention, no patent is possible. Mean huh? Maybe for the little guy, but how about General Motors? Say GM invents a great new trunk latch, sell millions for 5 years then applies for a patent. That would extend the life of this patent by at least 5 years. Remember the Constitution says "by securing for limited times...an exclusive right". This limited time must be defined, and is on the back end and the front end of patents.
Here's an example:
Let's say you invent a new kind of
boot jack like the one here, only much better. You and your friends are
amazed at how well it works. You decide to make some and sell them at a
local flea market. You sell the first one on May 1, 2000. You can't
make them fast enough. Every weekend they're selling like crazy. You
decide to file for a patent and do so on May 2, 2001.
Whether you know it or not you're supposed to inform the patent office of
anything that might affect the novelty of your invention. Let's say you
know about the "on sale" bar and opt not to tell the government. How could
they possibly know of some flea market transaction? The fact is, it's not
likely that they could. After all the patent office is not Santa Clause,
they don't know if you've been naughty or nice. So let's say you get your
patent. You borrow $100,000.00 because of it, and build a small factory
behind your house and start taking orders nationwide. You appear on
Good Morning America, David Letterman and sell over 5000 one day on QVC. People magazine
does a nice spread. Meanwhile, Consolidated Boot Jacks Inc. doesn't
like you eroding their market share and decide to take a look at your patent.
They can't design around it. Since your boot jack can be made with simple
tools, they wonder if maybe, just maybe, you sold a few outside the novelty
requirements of Section 102 of Title 35. They place an ad in your local
newspaper which reads to your horror: "$10,000.00 reward to person or
persons who
purchased a 'Slippery Jim's boot jack' on or before May 1, 2000, Come by
or call Room 365, Knights Rest Motel anytime day or night over the next 10
days". Three
individuals (one is your brother in law) produce signed, dated receipts plus the
boot jacks and claim their reward.
Your patent is toast. In the above case May 2, 2000 becomes the "critical
date". In patent law a "critical date" is not someone that tells you your socks don't match.
The critical date regarding a possible "on sale" bar is one year to the day
preceding a patent application's filing date.
Patent application filing date - May 2, 2001; critical date - May 2, 2000. Or in reverse: First sale(or offer* to sell) - May 1, 2000; application must be filed on or before May 1, 2001.
*More about what constitutes an "offer to sell" and "public use" in Lesson 1.
Let's look at this from one more angle. What if you invent the boot jack and experiment with it at home. It works perfectly. You're sure they will sell like crazy. You provide drawings to a cabinet maker and ask if he can build them. No problem. You order 500 to sell local boot stores. Will that order trigger the "on sale bar"? The answer is yes!!!
Title 35 section 103 says that a novel invention must also be unobvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which it pertains. POSA is what we call this imaginary person. Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art is a Very Important Imaginary Person. POSA the VIIP (pronounced vipe, rhymes with yipe!
What would make an invention obvious? Let's say you
bought one of those Segway® scooter things as shown here. It's battery
powered and capable of 18 mph. You want to get through crowds without
yelling for people to get out of your way. You get the idea to put one of
those "ching-chinger" bell things on the handle bar* in order to alert the
slower pedestrians to step aside and let you through. It works so well you
decide to apply for a patent. More likely than not the patent office would
tell you that since bicycles and tricycles have those types of alarms on their
handle bars, it would
be obvious to POSA (person of ordinary skill in the art) to add one to the Segway(r),
especially since it would be intended to accomplish the same desired effect. This determination
would render your invention unpatentable. Note, in a great many
foreign patent offices this requirement is called the "inventive step".
*For the sake of this example we're assuming that Segway's are not equipped with horns, buzzers or other type alarms controlled by the user.
What you have to remember is that there are at least two sides to every patent law. You wouldn't want some "good time Charlie" to add a simple, obvious improvement to your patented invention and then patent that, would you? That would make licensing an even bigger nightmare than it currently is. Put another way. Suppose you invent some patentable device and describe it in your patent the best way you you know how in order to produce the best possible result. Only there is an obvious improvement to your idea that makes it work ten times better. This improvement wasn't obvious to you, but it was obvious to POSA and therefore this improvement is unpatentable. The word "better" doesn't appear in the patent act, and neither does: faster, cheaper, stronger, lighter etc. As the inventor of the patentable invention you get the benefit of all the unpatentable improvements.
Before we move on, let's talk about Posa some more. Who is he or she? Posa is again an imaginary person having ordinary skill in the relevant art, and "art" being the art of designing "whatever". With the Segway® example, who would Posa be? A safety engineer/designer? An electrical engineer/designer, a mechanical engeneer/designer? Maybe one of those and maybe all three. And so the patent examiner or judge would ask their imaginary friend Posa if the addition of the ching-chinger-thing would be obvious. More than likely Posa would answer back "yes".
Remember Sam O'Reilly's tattoo machine? Who would Posa be? I'll tell you. In 1890 a Tattoo device designing Posa would be modeled from the ranks of: aborigines, bowery characters, Micronesian head hunters and Sing Sing lifers and other folks having ordinary skill in this colorful "art". Posas change with the turf. That's important. And so, while a virtual copy of Edison's first electric pen with the minor addition of an ink reservoir issued as a patent for O'Reilly, trying to patent Edison's second design as a tattoo device would have been rejected as obvious to even the head hunter, once Edison's second electric pen becomes public. Got it?
Edison got the second patent for the electric pen because he deserved it, while converting it to another tattoo machine would not be deserving of a patent because one would be merely retracing the successful steps as done before. The second tattoo machine would have exactly the same degree of novelty as did Edison's second electric pen but would lack unobviousness and therefore would be unpatentable. The headhunter would laugh in your face,.... hopefully just that one time.
Let's pursue this tattoo machine thing a little further. O'Reilly was able to sell his tattoo machine because Edison's patent had expired. Had it not, that wouldn't have been possible without a license from Edison. A patent gives one the right to exclude others from using, selling or offering to sell an invention, it does not automatically give one the right to use, sell , etc. even their own shiny, brand new patented invention.
Lets recap the rules of the game.
The Constitution Article 1, Section 8, clause 8 also known as:
The Patent and Copyright Clause which ordered the legislature to provide:
The Patent Act. The act of Congress that gives us: Title 35
And in this lesson we've mainly talked about under Title 35:
Section 100.......... defines invention and process
Section 101...........the statutory classes
Section 102...........the novelty requirements
Section 103...........the unobviousness requirement
C. Close, not so close, and not even close calls: Case Law.
Common law is what the U.S. Courts and all but one of the states inherited from England. Louisiana kept the French civil law.
With common law, important court decisions weigh heavily on future cases, especially those decisions that come from the Supreme Court, the end on the line.
The decision of Roe v. Wade makes abortion on demand legal as protected by the bill of rights' right to privacy.
Miranda v Arizona or as it's more often called the Miranda decision says a criminal suspect must be told of his right to keep quiet and of his right to council when collared. "You have the right to remain silent", etc.
If you're worried that you won't be able to understand the court cases we teach, relax, it's the easiest part. Trust us. You'll see.
Patent Law is awash with patent decisions. Each of our lessons contain several.
As we say, patent cases flesh out the laws making them much more understandable and give common sense examples to the stale static words of the statutes. Let's look at one patent decision in this mini lesson.
Pfaff v. Wells Electronics: The Supreme Court delivered this one on November 10, 1998, so it's pretty fresh.
On April 19, 1982 Wayne Pfaff applied for a patent on a computer chip socket. OK,... what's the "critical date" regarding a possible "on sale" bar? April 19, 1981, right? Right. Meaning that if a sale or offer for sale occurred before April 19, 1981, no valid patent could issue as a result of the APPLICATION'S April-19-82 filing date.
On April 8, 1981 Texas Instruments ordered 30,100 of Pfaff's sockets for a price of $91,155. Eleven days before the critical date........Toast. Remember that Section 102 doesn't say "sold" is says "on sale". (much more detail on this case in lessons 1) Had Wayne Pfaff filled his application on April 8, 1982 instead of April 19th, 1982 things would probably have turned out differently.
D. Skills of the Game (the skills portion of this mini lesson are incorporated with the rules and the test that follows, not so with the rest of the lessons)
E. Mnemonic* devices (in lesson 1 we dedicate a section to teaching the 5 mnemonic devices we use, and show you how to build your own).
*the m is silent as in Mneiman Markus
I like to say that patents feature the common use of strange words and much more insidiously, the strange use of common words. The common word that bugs me the most regarding patents is the word .....art. I'm not the only one. Remember the first statutory class, process. That class used to be called art. The powers that were got so sick of it they changed it to process. Art is something you see on a canvas right? At any rate they changed it to process.
So, lets attack the word art and remember the location of the U.S. patent and copyright clause in the Constitution with the following:
Art is 1 word I hate, hate!
Article 1, section 8, clause 8. Say the above till you memorize it. Then make the connection to the Article, section and clause of the Constitution.
Got that? This technique is called a "key word" mnemonic.
Now let's memorize the patentability requirements of sections 101, 102 and 103, with one 5 word sentence.
Say the "inventors search prayer":
"Please Make My Creation NUU" (this last word is pronounced-like and means: new).
The first letters of each word in this acrostic sentence (a type of mnemonic) stand for the statutory classes. Process, machine, manufacture, composition, and "new use".
The last word in this sentence is an acronym, the letters of which stand for novel, unobvious and useful.
First memorize the search prayer. "Please make my creation nuu". Say it over and over. Stop. Then say it over and over some more. Repeat this process as needed.
Now write down in a vertical column the first letters of the search prayer.
(don't just look at it here, write it down)
Please Make My Creation NUU.
P
M
M
C
N
now, flesh out the statutory classes from those letters:
Process
Machine
Manufacture
Composition
New Use
Now expand the acronym NUU , again with a vertical column.
N
U
U
which becomes:
Novel
Unobvious
Useful
What number U.S. code gives us patent law.......Title 35
Say the following: "Ideas thrive with Title 35". (rhyming peg word).
From this lesson under Title 35, remember the sections and what they cover by saying the following:
101 says what gets done (the statutory classes)
102 says it must be new (novelty requirement)
103 says POSA can't see (unobviousness requirement)
(more rhyming peg words)
In this lesson we remember the imaginary "person of ordinary skill in the art" with the acronym POSA. He's a Very Important Imaginary Person because he's one of the "people" that decide whether or not you get or get to keep your patent. POSA the VIIP
These mnemonics are like the training wheels on a bicycle, once you get your balance you won't need them anymore. The odd thing is that inventors have great memories. Great but selective. It's the ability to recall and relate that fuels the engine of creation which the inventor uses to such great effect. However, things that appear dull and boring don't get past the "gate keeper". And patent law at first blush seems very dull and boring. There's the rub. Once you nail down the basic stuff in your brain, the rest will flow. You'll see. 90% of our mnemonic devices are in this lesson. Once you get over the moment of clarity hump things become interesting, fascinating then fun.
F. Terms of the game.
You might wonder why this section of the lesson comes last. Shouldn't someone in a teaching situation be taught strange words or strange uses of common words at the beginning of a lesson instead of at the end. We've tried doing it both ways with real live students and this way works better at least with regard to the lessons. When we get to the part of reading patents, we'll do it the other way around.
So lets look at the words in this lesson that I believe need precise definitions. Lawyers are taught to interpret words by their context and usage. That way doesn't work for me. I need to see it in print from a dictionary with the exact definition as used. Here they are:
Art. Note! Every application of this word with respect to patents bugs me still. I have largely overcome my discomfort for this word with its definition in Blacks Legal Dictionary (pocket edition) which reads:
Art: the methodical application of skill or knowledge regarding the creation of something.
The key word in this definition is "creation". So if we refer to a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSA), we're not talking about a craftsman who builds something, rather someone who creates something new. In other words another inventor, a designer which of course can also be a craftsman or engineer but one who creates for a living.
Article: An instrument containing a set of rules.
Instrument: A formal legal document that entails rights, duties,
entitlements, and liabilities.
Patent: (a) the exclusive right to make, use, or sell an invention for a
specified period. ( NOTE this definition is wrong, we took
it verbatim from Black's Law Dictionary Mistakes are
common in this dictionary. A patent gives one the right
to exclude others from making, using or selling an
invention. A patent does not automatically give the
inventor the right to use his own invention.)
(b) an instrument by which the government conveys a grant of
public land to a private person.
Patentability: (this word doesn't appear in any dictionary that I've seen).
In my own words: the combined legally defined qualities that
are necessary for an invention to receive a patent.
Code: A systematic collection of laws, rules or regulations.
Statute: The law passed by a legislative body (can be state or federal).
Statutory: Of or relating to legislation.
Useful: serving some purpose.
Novelty: the fact that an invention is new.
Unobviousness or nonobviousness: the fact that an invention is not obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the relevant art.
Bar: To prevent.
Cite: A reference to a legal precedent or authority, such as a case,
statute, or treatise, to substantiate or fortify a given position.
Treatise: writing that examines some particular subject.
Respectively: with respect to each of a number in the order given; example: Moe smacked Larry and Curly respectively. In other words he smacked Larry then he smacked Curly, quite possibly with one motion.
Therein: in that. She opened her purse and placed the hand grenade therein.
Thereof: of that. She handed me her purse and told me to guess the weight thereof.
Therefor: for that I sent in an application regarding my invention with hopes of receiving a patent therefor.
pro se: one who represents themselves legally also called pro per
That's it! The mini lesson. Go through as many times as you need. Practice the mnemonics. A good way to tell if you've learned something completely is to know it well enough to recite and explain the material to someone else. If you can't explain it to someone else you don't possess it do you? That's important with patents also.
After going through the mini lesson a couple of times take the quiz.
© 2002 Devinet Inc.