Any artist here do Cremains in glass, please read

[labrie]

Just a note to those of you who may do cremains art. This showed up on a glass blog craft web. It would be nice if those of you who make these or have information that may help. It is a back handed way to take away your income from your work. While I do not make these items I hate it when someone uses heavy handed practices to scare artist into submission. This is a verified post just hoping it was OK to do so here.

Art and livelyhood theft by deceit
This is Bud Graham, owner of CanalFultonGlassworks.com - Canal Fulton, OH. We are an only OHIO art gallery and hot glass production studio. Visit our website or contact Pete Vanderlaan if you want background on us.

You have not lived until you wake up one morning to open a FEDEX LETTER with a CEASE AND DECIST threat to stop all production of glass paperweights made with human or pet cremains; stop all sales, destroy all advertising, shut down your web site and report all sales of the infringed product or face a LAW SUIT or "we can discuss licensing of our patented product"?

Did that get your attention? This is legal theft created by an overwhelmed ( I say this with some degree of indignation) US Patent office and an 'Inventor" who while sighting related prior patents, willfully did not inform the patent office of existing, non patented prior art as illustrated by existing websites, advertizing, delivered art works etc. before November 15th, 2011 Date of (Provisional Patent application / Final Patent US 8,627,555 B2 - issued Jan, 14th, 2014).

NOTE, to qualify for PRIOR ART one must prove the existence, sale, public advertisement ETC, ONE YEAR PRIOR to the Provisional Patent application date IE PRIOR to NOVEMBER 14th, 2010. Even if you have made / sold / marketed; cremains infused art glass prior to this date and can't prove it; the Patent Holder can stop your sales and in effect either shut you down or become your silent partner, IE protection racket!

If you made cremains infused orbs, eggs, rounds, IE solids; with a typical 2 gather process; encasings the first gather containing the shaped (twisted to form a helix) picked up cremains and or colored frit this patent affects you.

To understand this threat visit:
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.htm Search for 8,627,555 B2
Download a copy of the patent, read it carefully. If you make cremains infused hot glass art glass; anything like the shape / process description / helix shapes, ETC. described in the Patent CLAIMS (See bottom quarter of column 8 to the end of the document).

I encourage you to take two steps:
1. Round up and safe keep your records of production, sales, advertizing, catalog promotions, trade shows, new paper articles - IE anything PRIOR to NOVEMBER 14th 2010 so you are ready to defend your prior art position should you too receive a "Scarlet Letter". Visit: http://archive.org/web/
For web based saved images of web sited by DATE for records accessible this way.
AND
2. Please share your PRIOR ART PROOF here so we can build a case against this patent to protect all our individual businesses. To be clear: we need copies of print advertisement, catalog pages with dates of distribution, newspaper articles and finally proof of commercial sales to individuals and or funeral homes. We do NOT need sales amounts or quantities but an signed and notarized statement, preferably on a business letterhead, to the effect that they have been your customer from PRIOR to NOV 14th, 2010 for some time period AND a representative photo of your typically supplied cremains infused art work. This evidence cannot be used against you but its absence can be IE NO evidence = Patent infringement.

This stinks, the process is sometime called paten troll actions. I do not need any flaming, or complaining, I have enough of that ilk myself. You and I need real work to document that this patent should not have been issued in the first place!

The defeat of this patent will be expensive. The fee alone, to accompany the evidence of PRIOR art, to the Patent office is north of $18,000 so please do not waste time with BS.

This leads me to the 3rd request:
If you currently make cremains infused hot art glass objects and began after NOV 15th, 2010; please support us because your business is effectively DEAD unless this patent is rejected by the patent office after review.

[PyroChixRock]

That's really sad someone would try to pull such bs. I don't use those techniques but the first time I encased cremains in glass was 2001. There are tons of us that predate this Nov 15, 2010 claim of patent. I'm not sure what documentation I have and how far it goes back but I can check, and ask other artists.

Thanks for posting this, Paul.

[snoopdog6502]

[Simian]

Looks like it only applies to a helix pattern. But for what I am currently doing I double dog dare them to come and get me.

[Mute]

i 2nd that motion...

[gypsea]

Thank you for sharing this Paul.

[Meerkat]

Do patents only apply in the USA, what if I am doing stuff here in Australia?

[brads]

I think you're overreacting a little bit regarding the "any artist" doing cremains thread title. As Simian pointed out, this patent, as bullshit as it is, only applies to cremain designs incorporating a double helix pattern. That still leaves anything else besides a double helix as fair game. With that said, like you I doubt very much that this patent will hold up to much scrutiny, as glassblowers have been encasing cremains for a very long time, and the "double helix" design is a very common one in paperweights. It is pretty hard to believe that no one used it in cremain paperweights prior to the patent application date. (Although producing documented proof of that might be a little bit of a problem, since cremain pieces are by their nature, generally one-offs.)

To see some of the other brilliant design ideas of these assholes, check the website of the company with the patent rights - http://www.the-next-future.com
There you'll find other ideas as "completely original" as a cell phone camera used to record analog electric meter readings, or a wide bottomed sleeve that fits over a soap dispenser bottle to keep it from tipping over.

I have no idea why these buttnuggets are promoting the amazing designs they are, or wasting the money to patent them. Vanity? Stupidity? Patent trolling? (Although it would seem pretty tough to troll someone using something as stupid as their "Soapsleeve" design.)

In the end, unless you are making the specific double helix paperweight cremain design they have managed to patent, my personal suggestion would be to tell them to fuck off and annoy someone else.

[lost nebula]

Do patents only apply in the USA, what if I am doing stuff here in Australia?

Your all sweet Meerkat. If they did want to stop international artists, they would have to have a lawyer in the US and well as one in every offending country and their legal fees would crush them before it even started. Fighting an international patent is hugely costly and nobody is going to fight it here over less than 100 artists here infringing on their design. I imagine they are probably way more concerned about their local sales market, you selling that here is not a sale they would have had anyway.