The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently issued U.S. Patent No. 9,000,000, entitled Windshield Washer Conditioner. The 9-millionth patent protects a system that collects and treats rainwater for replenishing a vehicle’s windshield wiper fluid. As I pointed out in an article here on IPWatchdog, it took less than 3 years and 8 months to reach this milestone after the last “million patent” was reached on August 16, 2011, when U.S. Patent No. 8,000,000, titled Visual Prosthesis, issued.
Do you remember who lost in the World Series last year? How about the Super Bowl? Do you know who was the second American in space? Unless you are a famous for being a runner-up, like the Buffalo Bills were during a 4-year run of losing in the Super Bowl, people tend to forget. See Super Bowl Results. I suspect that same tendency is also true with respect to patents. We tend to focus on these nice, round numbers when looking at significant points in history.
Today, however, we stick up for the little guy in this conversation, the contenders, or if you prefer, the “near misses.” So today, I thought we’d take a look at a couple of patents which will probably be lost to the annals of time simply because their issue number was off by one.
Near Misses for Number Nine Million
As we already mentioned, U.S. Patent No. 9,000,000 was issued on April 7th to protect a windshield wiper fluid replenishment system that collects and recycles rainwater. Oddly, this is a pretty fitting milestone patent during a year in which we see a great deal of activity in automotive innovations.
Also of interest was the fact that the two patents sandwiching the 9,000,000th U.S. patent were two pharmaceutical products, an area of innovation that we’ve also been focusing on heavily in recent days. U.S. Patent No. 9,000,001, entitled Organic Compounds, was issued to Intra-Cellular Therapies of New York City and claims novel compounds to be used as pharmaceutical medications for patients with neurological disorders by inhibiting phosphodiesterase-1 (PDE1). The inhibition of PDE1 can regulate the transmission of dopamine in a way that is beneficial for patients with Parkinson’s disease or depression.
Novel treatments for cancer were also very nearly the most recent million patent milestone, in U.S. Patent No. 8999999, which is titled Use of Inhibitors of Bruton’s Tyrosine Kinase (Btk). The patent, issued to Pharmacyclics, Inc. of Sunnyvale, CA, protects a method for treating relapsed or refractory chronic or small lymphocytic leukemia in an individual by administering one oral dose of a Bruton’s tyrosine kinase inhibitor, the dose amount ranging from about 280 milligrams to about 840 milligrams. This innovative treatment can mobilize a plurality of cells from a blood-borne cancer and determine a second regimen of cancer treatment to administer to the patient based upon cellular analysis.
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