Patent for Ed's Guitar Support circa '84

[Soon to be EX-fan]

Don't think I've seen this here before, but I found this pretty interesting:

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=US...en#PRA1-PA4,M1

[hatchetforce]

How the heck did you find that?

[batch]

Long time ago there was a thread about EVH's patents. There is a lot more of them. I don't remember the website... Maybe a search on the forums.....

[ED-A-HOLIC]

amazing find

I remember reading an interview where Eddie talked about patenting that, and later he thought, who is going to use that exept me.

[vhrocker]

Sweet find!!!

[Wolfgang_'99]

Thats funny.

I have a pic of him using it in an old guitar world.

[Soon to be EX-fan]

How the heck did you find that?

Used Google's new Patent Search Engine....did a search on "Van Halen", there's plenty of other stuff Eddie's done too...

[hatchetforce]

Used Google's new Patent Search Engine....did a search on "Van Halen", there's plenty of other stuff Eddie's done too...

[Bad to the Bone]

I used to have a picture of Ed playing that "trey table"...I think he used it in his solo section for the DD or 1984 tours...he talked about it alot when FUCK was released cause the solo for Judgement Day was the same concept as what you'd use the trey table for.

[MF5150]

How could they write 7 pages about such a simple thing.

[vistadelrey]

wow.

a little snapshot into the world of EVH and his work.

[HissingCobra]

That's sooo cool! I actually have a POSTER of Ed playing a solo and it looks just like that picture on the patent. I bought that poster back in 1985 or so.

[Olen]

How could they write 7 pages about such a simple thing.

Good question. As a patent attorney, I can probably give a little insight.

Patent applications (and hopefully, the issuing patent that results) are drafted with several things in mind. First, at the very least, the patent should protect the intended commercial embodiment of the invention. Second, as is best practicable, the patent hopefully protects more than just the commercial embodiment, as it should also defend against any close imitations or equivalents, and plausible variations to protect against competition. Third, the patent should attempt to discuss (although not necessarily claim) as many plausible variations, and variations of variations, since patents are used as prior art against later filed patent applications. Ideally, all three phases are covered as completely as possible so that the inventor has protection for his / her invention, and disclosed variations, and may also preempt the issuance of later patent claims by another for variations already disclosed in the inventor's application / patent.

B/c of these considerations, patent applications have strayed into the land of girth. Up until the 1970s or so, most patent applications / patents were short, and tended to claim a general concept and subtle variations. However, with the proliferation of patent litigation, and the imperfect information that Patent Examiners sometimes have, patents are issued that are too broad. In litigation, the claims may be narrowed by the court. Thus, the number of dependent claims far exceed the number of independent claims and operate as a back up if / when litigation commences.

With this particular patent, which is relatively short in today's climate, the cover sheet is page 1, the drawings are pages 2 and 3, and the specification is pages 4-7. The USPTO requires specific items be included in the specification, including "Background", "Summary", "Brief Description of the Drawings", "Description of the Invention", "Claims" and an "Abstract".

The "background" is a historical overview of the art (from the perspective of the inventor), and tells the story of where the art has attempted to solve a problem, and why the present invention solves a problem differently or solves multiple problems at once, or the like.

The "summary" is self explanatory, and is usually sentence form of the "claims".

"Brief Description of the Drawings" is self explanatory.

The heart of the application / patent is the "Description of the Invention" and the "Claims". The description provides the explanation and support of the claims that are presented at the end of the document. The description provides greater detail (usually) than the claims and describes the various embodiments envisioned by the invention, etc.

The last three columns (6, 7 and 8 - on pages 6 and 7) are the "claims" which are the heart of any patent. The "claims" define the invention that is protected by the patent, much the verbal description of one's property in a deed of title.

As you can tell by this explanation, there is a template as to form, but the details will influence the length or brevity of the description.

Hope this helps (if not - for my own ego - just say that it helped - LOL).