Always describe your sex toys in great detail–no matter how embarrassing. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Florida district court finding of a valid patent on a sex toy. Ritchie v. Vast Resources, Inc., 2008-1528, -1529 (April 24, 2009). The court deemed the phrase, “appreciable amount,” to be far too vague with respect to the amount of an oxide of boron present in the glass toy. In other words, the device was the result of ordinary experimentation on compositional structure one would expect from ‘experts’ in the area–and therefore obvious and unpatentable.
Henry Miller (1891-1980) toying with a new idea.