While very cool and seemingly well-designed, this seems like a derivative of the lock developed by the YouTuber StuffMadeHere. A little strange to see someone applying for a patent for a version of someone else's design.
The underlying principle that's common between the StuffMadeHere and Enclave designs is 1. Decouple setting the pins from testing them, and 2. Do not allow the keyway access to physically manipulate the set pins while testing them.
Interestingly this same principle is used throughout cryptography, e.g. in constant time comparison algorithms. Basically, any partial success information leak can be used to reduce the search space exponentially. And that's what single-pin picking is all about, so it's cool that this idea has (finally?) migrated to physical security.
Building a lock which does not leak any information about what's happening inside is equivalent to building a mechanical, room temperature quantum computer. For if that information isn't leaking to the environment in some way, there is no mechanism to decohere a superposition state. Hence in principle a mechanical lock which is secure in the information theoretic sense is impossible. It is still theoretically possible to make a computationally secure lock (eg a mechanical implementation of a hash function). But there's currently no real proof that one-way functions are actually one-way. The security of such a lock is subject to a foundational guess in cryptography.
I don’t see how this patent has any legs to stand on.
Well USPTO did move to first-to-file under Obama.
Is there a patent filed before this one?
I don’t like patents, because given the world population, any idea was had by someone that didn’t have the resources to file it. Publishing a timestamped design is, I believe, one of the least expensive ways to create prior art without creating patents.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31881973
Once that happens, getting it revoked is no easy task.
Prior art, whether from another patent or from some other source, will still establish that the applicant is not an inventor and not eligible for a patent.
First-to-file (FTT) only differs from first-to-invent (FTI) when there is an "interference". That's when two or more separate parties are simultaneously applying for patents on the same invention.
Under FTI your priority date was the date you conceived the invention if you then worked diligently toward reducing the idea to practice up until you filed your patent application. If you stopped working diligently on reducing the idea to practice and then resumed it, the date you resumed became your new priority date.
What counts as a break in working toward reduction to practice sufficient to reset your priority date? How much documentation do you need to prove you were working continuously on it from your claimed priority date?
Figuring all that out can be expensive and time consuming and often gives results that seem wrong. It's almost random whether the priority date by this method actually matches who seems to morally most deserve the patent.
FTF gives priority to whoever files first. It doesn't produce any worse outcome than FTI and saves a lot of time and money for both the patent office and applicants.
Even as an inventor with some experience in the patent process, I still find it hard to second guess the patent office on what they will accept or reject as prior art. The lawyers are better at it than I am.
More than once I've rushed breathlessly to the lawyers with screaming hot obvious prior art, and they say: "Meh, it's not prior art because of X, Y, and Z, nice try."
There’s a big world of lock design and research out there, and I doubt this company simply decided to rip off a YouTuber.
While you’re likely right, YouTubers are massive in terms of reach and popularity, and there are heaps of cases where companies have done exactly that…
Apparently it's common depending on the country you live.
Some countries have a first-to-file versus a first-to-invent patent system. And so you end up with people (often inventors or retired lawyers) who spend their days filing patents for other people's inventions. The idea being that they only need one or two of the patents in their lifetime to result in a massive payday for it be all worth it.
Bottom line, you don't always patent the whole device, sometimes just the small unique implementation details are valuable enough.
And so rather than litigate, roll the dice and potentially strengthen the patent's standing sometimes it's easier just to negotiate a deal with them.
Yes, it costs money to get a patent invalidated based on prior art. But: an amount that even a single person who stands to actually gain from having a patent overturned should have no problem with. You're asking the USPO to spend time redoing work, literally halting any other patent work they could be doing instead. So it's not a trivial amount, but it's also hardly a prohibitive amount if you actually want a specific patent revoked.
The AIPLA Report of the Economic Survey for 2017 notes that the typical patent infringement suit with less than $1 million at stake costs on average costs more than $600,000 dollars, while the typical patent infringement suit with between $1-10 million at stake costs on average nearly $1.5 million to litigate.
https://blueironip.com/what-are-the-costs-to-enforce-or-defe...
Costs for IPR or Post-Grant Review (approximate mean):
Through filing petition: $120,000.
Through end of motion practice: $300,000.
Through PTAB hearing: $400,000.
Through appeal: $600,000I'm pretty sure 95% of patent applications and 50% of granted patents are attempts to steal someone's invention out from under them.
I also seem to recall that the LockPickingLawyer was able to break that lock using two separate methods that I didn't see addressed in the article, so I wonder how much this person just copied StuffMadeHere..
I'm no expert but at least I understand the things LPL did a but better now.