By Joseph N. Hosteny of Niro, Scavone, Haller & NiroRegular IP Today columnist Joseph N. Hosteny is an intellectual property
litigation attorney with the Chicago law firm of Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro. A Registered
Professional Engineer and former Assistant US Attorney, his articles have also appeared in
Corporate Counsel Magazine, The Docket (American Corporate Counsel Association),
American Medical News, Inventors’ Digest, Litigation Magazine and Assembly Engineering
Magazine. Mr. Hosteny can be reached at (312) 236-0733, or by e-mail at jhosteny@hosteny.com, or by visiting his web site at http://www.hosteny.com.
Life is change, it seems, except when it comes to the Patent Office. There, time
stands still. On December 17, 1921, The New York Times commented
that:
Inventions are the main builders of American manufactures. Nine-tenths of our industries have
sprung from patents. They are the great makers of employment, the creators of new channels for
labor.
The Times’ observation was certainly true. The inventions of
the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries include Otis’s elevator, the typewriter, the
linotype, the washing machine, the zipper, the radio, the automobile and the airplane. Skyscrapers,
modern printing and publishing, a...
