Weekly Worthless Patent

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Inflating watercraft flotation device

This was the first patent I looked at Dec 14th and I selected it on the spot even though it was assigned. Read the abstract for this patent and the two most recent patents it references. You could practically interchange the abstracts and nobody would be the wiser because they all three add automatic or manual extra flotation to a boat. There is a company formed to make this version however. Hopefully they won't have to get a license from the holders of the prior patents.

Only 7 pages of this 35 page patent are included here. There were 25 pages of detailed drawings and, of course, each drawing had to be described in the text of the patent. Were that many drawings necessary? It seems unlikely but this is the fourth patent to issue from essentially the same application. The other patents' claims are all fairly narrow too due to the considerable prior art. In fact, though it is not cited, Abraham Lincoln's patent 6,469 is somewhat relevant prior art as it too adds extra flotation on demand.

I also peeked ahead a few patents and found a solar powered bird feeder and a electrified dog collar--both of which were very tempting to choose instead of this one. They both suffer from exactly the same flaw this patent does, they are merely--from a consumer perspective--"me too" patents. Certainly it may be profitable to sell products based on them because similar patents exist and such products are on the market, but it won't be the patent that makes the money.

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