I am not sure what database you are talking about as I do not use Justia to search for patents.

But in the normal course of things, a patent application is published 18 months after that application (or a priority application) was filed. So for example US20170035603 A1 was a publication... Read more »

This is going to require that a patent attorney take a deep dive on the material that you provided and the nuances of the issued patent claims. There may be a path to correct inventorship to add you as one of the inventors. If you did not assign over your rights, then being a coinventor makes you... Read more »

In order to obtain a patent, you will need to show that your pickleball is not just different from the existing pickleballs but differs in a way that would be non-obvious to a non-creative expert in pickleball design.

In order to sell pickleballs, you need to be clear of all relevant... Read more »

Not clear how they will get access to your business idea. If you mean will they be able to look at your provisional patent application, the answer is no (not unless you provide a copy). If you mean your US patent application, the default is that the application is published 18 months from the... Read more »

A US patent covers a produce while it is in the US. So if you want to avoid the US patent, you need to avoid the US. That means the product cannot be in the US and you cannot make the sale from the US.

If you open an office in Canada to make sales and import products from China without... Read more »

A patent only applies to the country that issued the patent. (There are a few regional patent system but none that include the United States and Canada so we will ignore that nuance right now).

A US patent would apply to items made in the US and exported into Canada or to items made in... Read more »

Google patents lists the expiration date of October 9, 2031 (assumes payment of all maintenance fees).

There are three independent claims. In order to infringe the claims, you need to do what is either literally in claim 1, 8, or 14 or be covered by the slight expansion of scope afforded... Read more »

I am sorry but this sort of situation deserves a serious answer that will only come when a patent attorney looks at the accused product, the cease and desist letter, and the referenced patents. This is simply not a good candidate for casual comments on a public web site.

As a general... Read more »

This does not seem to be a patent issue. When filing a patent application, one needs to submit the true list of inventors. From your description, I don't think that this person has patents that were issued with fake inventors.

I am not sure what type of scam is going on here but... Read more »

Yes. For an example see https://answers.justia.com/question/2022/11/09/can-the-formula-for-a-specific-type-of-c-932358 . The '358 patent was for a form of concrete used to make faux villages for use in military training exercises. The concrete was tuned to receive the bullets so that the... Read more »

If you are aware of the material in the foreign patent (or other foreign language document) and the material is non-duplicative, prior, and material as defined in 37 CFR 1.56, you need to provide it. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/37/1.56 Whether it may be marginally annoying to the... Read more »

Your question did not contain the list. But even without seeing the list, I can warn you that some pending applications won't show up on a list. The default is that US applications are published 18 months after filing. So most applications filed within the last 18 months won't show... Read more »

1) You do not need an attorney to pay a maintenance fee. You can pay directly with a credit card at https://fees.uspto.gov/MaintenanceFees/.

2) There is a process to revive a patent for unintentional failure to pay a maintenance fee. There is a hefty fee for this. The petition is at... Read more »

The process wants the names of the true inventors. Inventors are not always the owners or the people that worked the hardest on making the prototypes. Inventors are the people that impacted the direction of the project so that at least one significant piece of an issued claim would not be there... Read more »

Some challenges post-grant have limits on the type of challenge. An ex parte reexamination under 35 USC 302 is limited to challenges based on prior patents and printed publications. Other forms of challenge address an on-sale bar. Often if a product is on sale, there are user manuals, white... Read more »

You can start by doing a Google Search. Here is the search for looking for patents that I invented. Note that if you do not include the middle name that you will get extra patents that other people invented but you can go through that short list.... Read more »

This might help. The USPTO has a network of providers that provide pro bono assistance to inventors that cannot afford patent attorneys.

https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/using-legal-services/pro-bono/patent-pro-bono-program

There are also legal clinics at some law schools... Read more »

It is near impossible to "know" that something is patentable as the world is a big place and any reasonable prior art search is not going to check every obscure article in every language. (Prior art includes anything written since the beginning of recorded history in all languages that... Read more »

You should consult with a patent attorney. This fact pattern happens from time to time as the work of a Ph.D. candidates get ignored when the patent application is filed after their graduation.

You will need to have a patent attorney compare the claims to your writings. It is possible... Read more »

US patents are approved by the US Patent and Trademark Office. Period.

You may need other approvals from other agencies to make and use the product but they don't issue patents.

This happens all the time with pharmaceutical products. There is work to obtain patent protection... Read more »