Q: Hi, I have an idea for patenting, similar to #5857273. I am wondering how to pull up the drawings for it? And if expired
how to find out if a patent is expired and if I can put a patent pending on something similar?
A:
One easy way is to look up the patent at https://patents.google.com/ . Then, for a US patent, put a US in front of the number such as US5857273. Google will fetch the patent and also let you know if it is expired or not (it is).
To get your own patent in the same topic, you will have to make some improvements that the examiner considers to be both novel (not been done before) and not obvious. Not obvious means not trivial. Something that would not be apparent to someone of average skill in that area.
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