As an inventor in my own right, I filed for and obtained a patent for my first invention in Nigeria on 23rd June, 2016 and 2nd December, 2016, respectively under Patents and Designs Act (CAP 344 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990).
Innovation-driven entrepreneurship sometimes gives rise to intellectual, industrial and legal matters/wars which have now formed the basis for interventions such as protection of inventions/innovations against intellectual property exploitation.
Even though it is expensive, patent race does not only enhance the inventor’s confidence with respect to a proprietary right to an intellectual property, it also boosts investor’s confidence with respect to ownership and partnership opportunities as the case may be.
To make a Provisional Patent Application (PPA) you need to provide a written description of the invention and some drawings. Simple! All the following are acceptable: hand-drawn sketches, renders of a 3D CAD model, photos of a prototype, flow charts, etc.
Get a competent attorney!
Below are some questions that will help create a description of your invention. Please remember that the more information you can provide, the better your PPA!
- Title
Please give a title for your invention. It is recommended that this be something short
and simple.
- Problem solved
Please describe the problem that the invention solves. If it helps, you can talk about how this problem was handled in the past. If the invention does not solve a problem, you can describe what the invention does that could not be done before.
- The invention
Here, you are to write an accurate description of your new device, process, or composition. Try to be as concise as possible without missing any key features that make your invention new and unique. Focus on the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the invention in your description – how it’s made and how it operates – rather than its advantages and commercial applications.
- Annotated drawing
It would be helpful if you could annotate/label one of your images. Seeing how you name the different parts of your invention is especially useful.
Elisha Gray and the race to patent the telephone
First to file and first to invent are legal concepts that define who has the right to the grant of a patent for an invention. Since March 16, 2013, after the United States abandoned its “first to invent/document” system, all countries have operated under the “first-to-file” patent priority requirement.
Patent Wars – Elisha Gray Vs Alexander Graham Bell
On February 14, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone patent application entitled “Improvement in Telegraphy” was filed at the USPTO by Bell’s attorney Marcellus Bailey. Elisha Gray’s attorney filed a caveat for a telephone just a few hours later entitled “Transmitting Vocal Sounds Telegraphically.”
Alexander Graham Bell was the fifth entry of that day, while Elisha Gray was 39th. Therefore, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Bell with the first patent for a telephone, US Patent 174,465 rather than honor Gray’s caveat. On September 12, 1878 lengthy patent litigation involving the Bell Telephone Company against Western Union Telegraph Company and Elisha Gray began.
Elisha Gray’s Patent Caveat Filed on February 14, 1876
To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, Elisha Gray, of Chicago, in the County of Cook, and State of Illinois, have invented a new art of transmitting vocal sounds telegraphically, of which the following is a specification.
It is the object of my invention to transmit the tones of the human voice through a telegraphic circuit and reproduce them at the receiving end of the line so that actual conversations can be carried on by persons at long distances apart.
I have invented and patented methods of transmitting musical impressions or sounds telegraphically, and my present invention is based on a modification of the principle of said invention, which is set forth and described in letters patent of the United States, granted to me July 27th, 1875, respectively numbered 166,095, and 166,096, and also in an application for letters patent of the United States, filed by me, February 23d, 1875.
To attain the objects of my invention, I devised an instrument capable of vibrating responsively to all tones of the human voice, and by which they are rendered audible.
In the accompanying drawings I have shown an apparatus embodying my improvements in the best way now known to me, but I contemplate various other applications, and also changes in the details of construction of the apparatus, some of which would obviously suggest themselves to a skillful electrician, or a person in the science of acoustics, in seeing this application.
Figure 1 represents a vertical central section through the transmitting instrument; Figure 2, a similar section through the receiver; and Figure 3, a diagram representing the whole apparatus.
My present belief is, that the most effective method of providing an apparatus capable of responding to the various tones of the human voice, is a tympanum, drum or diaphragm, stretched across one end of the chamber, carrying an apparatus for producing fluctuations in the potential of the electric current, and consequently varying in its power.
In the drawings, the person transmitting sounds is shown as talking into a box, or chamber, A, across the outer end of which is stretched a diaphragm, a, of some thin substance, such as parchment or gold-beaters’ skin, capable of responding to all the vibrations of the human voice, whether simple or complex. Attached to this diaphragm is a light metal rod, A’, or other suitable conductor of electricity, which extends into a vessel B, made of glass or other insulating material, having its lower end closed by a plug, which may be of metal, or through which passes a conductor b, forming part of the circuit.
This vessel is filled with some liquid possessing high resistance, such, for instance, as water, so that the vibrations of the plunger or rod A’, which does not quite touch the conductor b, will cause variations in resistance, and, consequently, in the potential of the current passing through the rod A’.
Owing to this construction, the resistance varies constantly in response to the vibrations of the diaphragm, which, although irregular, not only in their amplitude, but in rapidity, are nevertheless transmitted, and can, consequently, be transmitted through a single rod, which could not be done with a positive make and break of the circuit employed, or where contact points are used.
I contemplate, however, the use of a series of diaphragm in a common vocalizing chamber, each diaphragm carrying and independent rod, and responding to a vibration of different rapidity and intensity, in which case contact points mounted on other diaphragms may be employed.
The vibrations thus imparted are transmitted through an electric circuit to the receiving station, in which circuit is included an electromagnet of ordinary construction, acting upon a diaphragm to which is attached a piece of soft iron, and which diaphragm is stretched across a receiving vocalizing chamber c, somewhat similar to the corresponding vocalizing chamber A.
The diaphragm at the receiving end of the line is this thrown into vibration corresponding with those at the transmitting end, and audible sounds or words are produced.
The obvious practical application of my improvement will be to enable persons at a distance to converse with each other through a telegraphic circuit, just as they do now in each other’s presence, or through a speaking tube.
I claim as my invention the art of transmitting vocal sounds or conversations telegraphically through an electric circuit.
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