http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2005/0223621.html
How did that patent sneak through??
Paul
Note that the document is titled “-----Application”.
It is not an issued patent. None of mine have the word “Application” on them.
Not really a Woolly Bugger either.
i think a reread of the application is in order
Yeah,
The application is for an All Wool Fly Tying Method, NOT for a ‘wooly bugger’ fly.
If you read it, you’ll see it’s about tying principally with Wool, the material from a sheep, not about a fly pattern called the wooly bugger, which isn’t mentioned.
Not a new method, either.
Don’t know if the patent will be apprpved, but I have some flies right now I tied using that basic technique.
Buddy
This exercise seems to be some guys attempt to make an end run around the patent laws.
No patent was ever issued. I was told the only one issued was that on the Teeny Nymph.
Agreed, BTW I still tie the Teeny nymph, or at least my version of it, have been doing it since 1979, when all I had was pheasant tail and a hook.
This thread brings back memories of two weeks on a federal jury to decide a patent infringement case. Had to do with modular prison cells, not flies, but talk about needing coffee…
Big SCOTUS case within the last few years decided the patent office was far too liberal with patents and they needed to give far fewer of them. Made lots of patents suspect at the stroke of all those pens…
art
wooly bugger IS mentioned but this still is not a patent for a wooly bugger
“Both of the above-described methods can easily be varied to create a variety of dry flies, wet flies, nymphs, or streamers. For example, to tie an all-wool nymph as shown in FIG. 3. The wooly bugger is a popular ?streamer? or ?nymph? resembling a caterpillar, leech, hellgrammite, etc. The fly tying method is as described above, except that after creation of the post a second tuft of wool is tied parallel to the hook shank along its entire length, over the post intermittently using a spaced-spiral tie as shown. This creates a long undulating body down to the bend of the hook, where the post juts outward, having become visible in the tail.”
see the pdf file for what this patent is really about
The dumbest patent I’ve ever seen actually granted was for “A method of exercising a cat by shining a laser pointer at a wall.”
That’s pretty much when I realized that we’re doomed.
The original Woolly Bugger was spelled with two L’s. I remember reading an article written by the person who created it and that is how he spelled it. His daughter named it for him.
The idea that you can patent a fly is kind of silly. Tying is an art form, art is meant to be copied, hence fly tyers are going to copy any fly they want to tie.
Larry —sagefisher—
Yet a fellow copyrighted “Trout Beads” and every possible spelling and misspelling of the words. And now aggressively chases anyone that offers anything for sale that he finds he sends cease and desist letters to them even if the product is not capitalized and nothing like his product… A frigging plastic bead like everyone has been using for a long time, varying only in size and color… and he has covered about all of them, whether they fish or not.
You cannot give me a “Trout Bead” product. Not only because I will not fish beads, but also because the guy is an absolute idiot.
art
i dont know if thats the ones you are talking about in the link above, but you should notice the “registered” (circle r) in the logo at the top of the page , then at the bottom it says “tm” for trademark.
i am not a lawyer nor do i play one on tv but i doubt you can “copyright” words or names. words or names can be trade marked not copyrighted
heres a question about copyrighting the word “bamboo”
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_copyright_the_word_bamboo
or
Art -
I just googled ( binged ) “Trout Beads.” Whole bunches of folks and fly shops selling products with those two words and no mention by anyone of any copyright.
It’s been quite a while, but my recollection is that copyright is a right that exists at the time an author creates a piece of work, e.g. novel, poem, article, etc. ( I checked into it at a time I wrote some poetry that people suggested I copyright. ) You don’t have to file for a copyright to have one - the filing just simplifies proving that you have a copyright in a particular work or material. If you can prove you are the creator of the work, the originator, whatever you want to call it, you can still enforce your copyright rights.
Can’t see how anyone could copyright a simple and common expression like trout beads. Are you sure that this fellow actually has the copyright folks in his hip pocket on this one ?? Or is he just out there making the claim ??
John
I’ve had to deal professionally with copywrite and trademark infringement a few times.
A couple of things are pretty clear.
First, copywrites and trademarks are enforceable only if you defend them. That’s why Disney, Warner Brothers, the NCAA and a few others empoly folks to watch for and report patent violations and manage to keep quite a few legal professionals busy. If you have a patent, and you don’t actively enforce it, it becomes ‘moot’ and you can’t, all of a sudden just because you feel like, decide to sue someone over it.
Second, these things apply ONLY, and have ALWAYS ONLY, applied to commercial infringement. There is no violation if there is no profit from it. For fly tyers, that means that you can tie any fly you want, regardless of copywrite or patent, as long as you don’t sell it.
If I make a sculpture of Mickey Mouse, it’s fine to do so as long as I don’t sell it. If I sell it, I’m violating the copywrite and/or patent.
There is an exclusion in all copywrite and patent infringement relating to original or concurrent development of the same idea or item. If you can prove that you developed something on your own, without influence from the patented property, you are exempt. This gets harder to prove with the internet and such. It’s a valid defense, but you have the burden of proof on it.
Original art is something that is easy to copywrite, and that right is easy to enforce. Unlike what some believe, original art is not intended to be copied. Like any other endeavor, artists deserve the profits from their labors just like anyone else. Songwriters, painters, sculptors, and maybe especially animators and illustrators, all have a right to enforce exclusivity of their work.
Buddy
Ray, the Gyro Fly was patented by William Avery Bush from Michigan. He licensed Wm. Mills in New York to produce the first flies, which he wanted to call parachutes but Mills chose to call it the Gyro. It’s now known as the parachute. And Kapok as a material for floating dry flies was patented as well, I have copies of both patents in my possesion. You can view first page of the Gyro patent here: http://flyanglersonline.com/features/oldflies/oldflies20090622.php
I’ve got the whole thing in PDF form if you’re interested. PM me and I’ll email it to you.
Eric
Yup, was typing rather than thinking before my first cup of coffee. The linked website is the one and I hesitated posting anything for the simple reason any mention is good advertising to someone.
My son at 14 was selling clay beads for fishing on ebay and the auction title included trout and bead following one another. The product was not the same as what they sell and the only requirement was rearranging the words to some Pigin English configuration. But in the complaint they listed their other TMs and it was essentially every way you could imagine to misspell the two words, effectively blocking any use of those two words end to end. There was nothing creative or clever about it and they certainly were not the originators of fishing beads.
I have less than no use for that type of enforcement and marketing when it prohibits simple and direct English communication. It would be like GM putting a trademark on automobile, auto, autoz, car, cars, carz, etc… At some point the use of simple, direct English must be allowed.
art
Copyrights, trademarks and patents are all different things, with no one set of laws in any one jurisdiction applying equally to all of them. Few things in this world are as convoluted as all of the regulations pertaining to intellectual property and I doubt even the most well-educated lawyer knows all of it.
I’ve been working with this crap on and off for I don’t know how many years, having written software, prose, game systems and been involved in groups like the League of Programming Freedom (big fighters against software patents) at one point or another. This crap is insane, totally out of control and only getting worse.
Ultimately, there are only two rules you can count on:
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If intellectual property matters to you and your endeavors, get your advice and interpretations from a real lawyer who’s office you can sit in. Relying on an internet forum, or taking advice from someone who claims to be familiar with the law is only asking for trouble. I’ve personally known people who have been burned by this, on both sides. They either failed to protect their work properly and lost it, or they thought their use of something was okay and ended up being royally screwed in court later.
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Even though there are criminal penalties in some places for violations, these sorts of disputes are ultimately a civil matter where he who has the most lawyers is probably going to win. Just because you “know” you’re not violating the law, doesn’t mean you’ll win in court. The whole concept of “fair use” has taken it up the rear since the DMCA, so you can’t trust even non-commercial, personal use to be safe anymore.
What makes the whole situation suck the most, in my opinion, is that it makes it much harder for people to share their ideas freely when they want to. Hence the evolution of “free” licenses like the Creative Commons and GPL, which try to ensure that if you release an idea (poem, song, software, whatever) free to the world for everyone to make use of or improve, no one can then come along and wrap up the idea as their own. And even those licenses are being challenged as unlawful.
It all boils down to the fact that ideas are big business and the people who stand the most to gain from intellectual property laws are the ones with the most money.
I guess it’s not referencing the Wooly (woolly) bugger only, but I still thought it was amusing that he was attempting to patent a fishing fly that uses only wool.
Am surprised by how much conversation this drummed up. Just no yelling on the bus please!
Paul