“She faced numerous thefts of her intellectual property and legal challenges to her patents and designs, but she refused to back down.” It’s 1867. You are a single woman working as a bundler at the Columbia Paper Bag Company in Springfield, Mass. And you are tired. Surely, you think, there is a better way to …
Education, Access, and Exposure One of the most inspiring speeches I ever heard was delivered at a banquet for a nonprofit where I worked years ago. The keynote speaker was Chef Jeff Henderson, and he was telling us, from experience, why some young people reach their potential and others don’t. One thing stood out: he …
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) offers free resources for inventors. These include application assistance; education and training; help appealing or fixing an issue; and other services that support independent patent and trademark filers. As a patent agency, we have noticed big disparities in inventorship, so we were happy to learn about the …
Need some happy news? We were so inspired by this. Overcoming ten major cancer surgeries as well as an incarceration, Aisha McCain emerged an inventor/entrepreneur who now holds multiple patents in medical innovations and focuses her work on service to others. As a young kid, Aisha would go with her mother to visit nursing homes …
… but she still does 70% of the work. Just kidding. Happy International Women’s Day from the boss.
From struggling single mother to business diva, Bette Nesmith Graham’s grit and perseverance was epic. So was her story. If you want to be inspired, read Perseverance, thy name is Bette at this month’s installation of the USPTO’s Journeys of Innovation. “She stood outside the Texas Bank and Trust high-rise building in downtown Dallas one …
“…the motivation for the Jogbra started with a blunt question from her sister in 1977 about the discomfort she experienced while running: “Why isn’t there a jockstrap for women?” Ladies, remember the days before sports bras? Women athletes resorted to bandaging their breasts. Same with any women who jogged, or played b-ball, or tennis, or …
(Originally published May 8, 2019) Eighty percent of our clients are white males. That’s cool, but we’d like to see more women and BIPOC inventors represented. So would the patent office. To that end, the United States Patent and Trademark Office is soliciting comments during open sessions to promote the SUCCESS Act of 2018. Here’s …