[Trombone-l] Don't pull your F slide out too far

[Dave Demko]

I worked at a software company where the management brought in a
patent attorney to interview us tech guys. I described a clever but
not astonishingly original way of modeling telecom circuits we used in
our provisioning system. In less than an hour, the lawyer said I'd
told him enough for five or six patentable ideas. Say what? Maybe B.
P. Leonard was similarly surprised to hear that the E flat attachment
qualified for a patent.

Edwards sells an E flat slide for the T350. I wonder if the University
of Akron collects fees for those.

Dave D.


On Fri, Apr 4, 2008 at 1:51 AM, Richardson,  Timothy A Mr CIV USA
IMCOM-Europe <Timothy.A.Richardson at eur.army.mil> wrote:
> Dave,
>
>  B. P. Leonard does play trombone, though it's not his day job, and has
>  been a list member here and on OTJ.  His championing of the G attachment
>  makes a lot of sense for the amateur, at least to me; his constant bore
>  theories are a little more controversial.  Well, maybe a lot
>  controversial.  <grin>  But I had some private correspondence with him
>  and he seemed to be a pretty decent guy.
>
>  Somehow I don't see him getting rich on the Eb bass trombone!!!  Oh,
>  wait, it's assigned to University of Akron, guess they get the fees.
>  Look for a new football power very soon with all that income.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Dave Tall [mailto:davetall at btrb.com]
>  Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 12:17 PM
>  To: trombone-l at samford.edu
>  Subject: [Trombone-l] Don't pull your F slide out too far
>
>  or you'll owe B. P. Leonard of the University of Akron some patent fees.
>
>
>  United States Patent  5,375,499
>  Leonard  December 27, 1994
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  --------
>  Single trigger perfect fifth slide bass trombone
>
>
>  Abstract
>  A slide trombone is provided which has an attachment that is activated
>  by a single thumb trigger to lower the basic pitch of the trombone by a
>  perfect fifth. This attachment configuration permits the player to play
>  all the chromatic tones between the tenor range and the pedal notes
>  using a standard length slide.
>
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>  --------
>  Inventors:  Leonard; B. P. (Akron, OH)
>  Assignee: The University of Akron (Akron, OH)
>
>  Appl. No.:  08/064,961
>  Filed:  May 18, 1993
>
>  ===============================================
>
>  I'm comforted to know that the USPTO's policy of granting trivial
>  patents for inventions with prior art and/or obvious to someone skilled
>  in the subject isn't limited to software and business process patents,
>  but includes stunning and heretofore unimagined inventions such as a
>  bass trombone with a single valve tuned to Eb.
>
>  Mr. Leonard also has a patent on an inline bass trombone with the thumb
>  valve tuned to a minor third and the finger valve tuned to
>  "approximately six semitones".
>
>  These are nearly as impressive as patent 6368227, "Method of swinging on
>
>  a swing", and patent 5443036, "Method of exercising a cat" (using a
>  laser pointer).
>
>  What a country!
>
>
>
>
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