[reitzensteinm]

What is your improvement? The products look the same, but it can be hard to tell in an image.

Without disclosing that you too are a copycat the article is a bit disingenuous.

I'm sure many of them went too far and are infringing your trademarks, but I'm equally sure that many others are knockoffs to the exact extent you are.

[donmcronald]

> What is your improvement? The products look the same, but it can be hard to tell in an image.

My grandma used to have the old ones when I visited as a kid. It's been a really long time, but I think the originals had deeper slots and the actual chips were a bit thinner. By making the slots shallower and the chips thicker they'd be less prone to bending which prevented them from fitting perfectly perpendicular after a bit of wear.

[p1necone]

That kind of incremental improvement strikes me as the sort of thing that shouldn't be patentable. Can you really patent "changing the physical dimensions a bit so it fits better"?

[bdowling]

> That kind of incremental improvement strikes me as the sort of thing that shouldn't be patentable.

It is. Almost all patented inventions are improvements of other inventions. Foundational new technologies are a rare exception.

> Can you really patent "changing the physical dimensions a bit so it fits better"?

It depends. If the claimed dimensions were new and non-obvious, then maybe. The obviousness analysis would depend on the particular facts of the case and could be quite complex. The questions would probably be ones like, “Would a person having ordinary skill in the art be able to discover the claimed dimensions without undue experimentation?” or “Do the claimed dimensions provide an unexpected result?” or “Does the prior art ‘teach away’ from selecting the claimed dimensions?” So, again, it depends.

[Cthulhu_]

Do they have a patent on it though? The article mainly talks about IP, copyright and trademarks. (although IP and patents are probably the same thing, IDK)

[jimmydddd]

They have a pending patent application. It would have to be allowed by the patent office to become a patent.

[phasetransition]

https://patents.google.com/patent/US20200254357A1/en?invento...

[reitzensteinm]

Clearly solid engineering, but one hell of a stretch to call that an invention. I wonder if it'll be granted.

[rwmurrayVT]

I can't believe I ever considered being a patent examiner after I finished my engineering degree...