Lock Miter Master Patented- finally!!
Alan in Little Washington (NC)
For the last couple of years I have been lurking more than posting, but I thought this was newsworthy. Some may remember that in addition to hobby woodworking, I also do a bit of tinkering- quite a few years ago, in 2008, my shop won the Wood Central/Woodcraft "America's Top Shops" contest- I tricked out my woodworking machines by adding VFDs and other special features, designed and built a stow-away hoist for my second story shop, built my own cyclone and designed and built electro-pneumatic automatic blast gates for and automated my dust collection system, etc. etc. I have always looked for better or easier ways to do things. A few years ago after experimenting and being dissatisfied with the usual crop of retail and DIY box joint jigs, I came up with an idea for a revolutionary box joint jig that actually worked great, on both a table saw and router table. A friend suggested I try to sell or license it, though I had never done anything like that before. I was lucky- INCRA thought my design had merit so licensed and turned it into the I-BOX which continues to sell.
Well, a few years after that, after a few unsuccessful attempts to sell/license other misc. ideas and designs. . . that were evidently considered less marketable by potential licensees 
(I came really close a couple of times!), I had another "light bulb moment." I came up with a design for a little jig that made it easy to set up the notoriously finicky lock miter router bit. It worked so well that I called it the Lock Miter Master. In short order I was also able to license it to Infinity Cutting Tools. Since the design was so simple it took less than 6 months from proposal, to licensing, to production, to market!!! Over four years ago, just before the jig hit the market, I researched, drafted and submitted a Provisional Patent Application to the USPTO. Then, after almost a year of successful sales and before the protections provided by the provisional application, which only last one year, expired, Infinity decided we should apply for a full Utility Patent, which we did in April 2014- over 3 years ago!
We just learned that a patent has issued!! It sure took a long time! I know, I know, many say a patent is only as good as the money you have to pay lawyers to defend it, but Yippee, anyway!
Below is a partial image of the first page of the patent followed by a photo of a retail item. The patent has 17 pages worth of drawings and patent gobbledegook, all for something barely the size of a book of matches, but if you want to read it follow this link to the USPTO webpage.
If you are not familiar with the Lock Miter Master and how it works, check it out on the Infinity website.
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