Intellectual Security: Patent Everything You Do, Before Someone Else Does

Fortified IP portfolios are the best defense against proliferating "business-method" patents.

Do you ever go online to reorder office supplies from Staples or OfficeMax? Are you a regular customer of the Internet grocery service Peapod.com? Then Kenn Fischburg wants a piece of the action.

Last May, Fischburg was awarded U.S. Patent No. 6,895,389 for his "Internet Procurement Method."

His patent describes a system that lets customers access an online order form that uses stored records of previous purchases and other data to simplify the buying process. He began developing the idea in 1998, to help his steady customers reorder goods on the Internet. Like Amazon.com’s "1-click" purchase and Priceline.com’s name-your-own-price reverse auction, Fischburg’s is one of hundreds of "business-method" patents awarded each year that give the inventor a 20-year monopoly, not on the design of a machine or a physical product, but on a way of doing business. Fischburg’s lawyers have begun contacting companies they believe have been using his innovation without the now-necessary license.

"The U.S. Patent and Trade Office is a tremendous reason to love the U.S.," says Fischburg, owner of Consumers Interstate Corp., a $20 million seller of office, packaging and janitorial supplies based in Norwich, Conn. "The fact that you can apply for a patent and get protection—it’s tremendous. It’s what makes a person want to invent something."

By Rob Garretson

Full Story: http://www.cioinsight.com/article2/0,1540,1902295,00.asp