Yes, I now have a Patent. It’s # 6,226,081 – “Optical Height of Fill Detection System and Associate Methods”. We filed the original application over three years ago (There are four of us on this one). The wheels of government grind slowly.
It is typical that I found out about this not from the Patent Office, not from the government, not from my fellow applicants, but from a company that evidently monitors the patent grants so that they can send out offers of coffee mugs and T-shirts commemmorating the event. I’ll bet I never hear about it from anyone else.
But who cares, I’ve got a patent! Only a zillion to go before I catch up to my uncle. (I still have a few applications in the pipe, so there’s hope yet.)
Please note that this has nothing to do with my Book, my Teemings writings, or my current job. I am one diffuse Renaissance Man.
Sure, you got your patent! But you had the help of your assistant, the four-eyed Joe Wilson, the leggy Dr. Ruth Adams, and most sinister of all – the giant foreheadded alien, Exeter!!
While I, the EVIL Professor Inky was forced to work in seclusion, deep below the Earth’s crust in my Science Pit[sup]TM[/sup] with only cockroaches and my own solvent fume induced hallucinations to keep me company! But someday… someday I will get MY patent! And the world will shudder at the revelation of… THE VIBRO-PANTIES!!!
Let’s see…four inventors…one with several patents and pending applications…one with two patents and one pending application…one with one patent and one possible pending application…one with one patent and evidently no pending applications.
I’m trying my damndest to think of an interociter one-liner, but nothing is bubbling to the surface. Inky has put us all to shame. Hey, just thought of a terrible one–It stands to Reason that you would be granted a patent. May all your Rhodes lead to riches, may you be the Rex of your… ah, I’m gonna give it up, especially since I can’t remember which of the two acting brothers is which.
Congrats! I went through the process myself, last year (although ours probably won’t be granted for a year or two, I suspect). Another dozen or so, and I’ll catch up to my father-in-law (sound familiar? :)).
Congratulations. You must feel just like Michael Nesmith’s mother.
On a related note, now I know why they turned down my request for a patent for my Optical Height of Fill Detection System - I forgot the Associate Methods! Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Oh well - I’ve still got my Push-Button Electronic Menu Built into Table of Restaurant System So You Don’t Have to Wait for a Waitress to Come Take Your Order pending. Though I should probably try to abbreviate the name a little.
But cereally, bravo.
You’d be that last one, then. I have no problem with answering here, but this won’t be an “official” answer. We have a searchable internal database, which is how I found all that. My search just turned up that one patent with nothing pending. My guess is your other three are so new that they don’t have any other information associated with them yet, such as your name.
Come on, you knew someone was going to ask.
