🎩 Magical Rabbit-In-The-Hat Licenses of Medical Patents! No Way! What?

Medical Patents Broker Inc.
By Kenneth Pearce, President

In this business, I have read my share of patents. As with everything else, some are better than others.

Before the America Invents Act, there were “submarine” patent applications that could surface out of nowhere into patents that a competitor was already infringing. Way back then, the patent term was 17 years from the date of grant rather than 20 years from the filing date. With the submarine strategy, a patent monopoly could last for decades after the original filing. One or more lobbyists got the Congressional ear, and the “submarines” were effectively lost in the deep forever.

So, if the submarine is dead, how do we pull a "Magical Rabbit" out of a medical patent today?

📋 The Playbook: How To Do It

First, the Magical Rabbit strategy is only for a few very determined patentees.

It’s not your grandfather’s medical patent application of 40–50 pages.

The engineers, inventors, and patent attorneys must agree on the most relevant core technologies. No need for a shotgun when targeted missiles expand from ground zero.

Sufficient capital is required to cover the extra expenses associated with the strategy.

You must claim enough inventions without claiming too many. It’s a precise business decision that, if executed correctly, can dramatically increase an owner’s gross revenue.

🔍 OK, I’m Interested – Now What?

It starts with a single, massive medical patent application disclosing a plethora of different embodiments or loosely connected inventions.

Excluding software and ancillary deposits, the application and drawings can easily total 500 pages or more. Unfortunately, I have had to read a few of these monsters. It’s a tremendous amount of science and law to digest. It takes me days. It might take AI 60 to 120 seconds—though AI logic still doesn't know all the nuanced factors a human can discern. I suspect when a patent examiner gets one of these long applications, they feel a bit sick and think, "Not another one."

The specifications and drawings disclose a kaleidoscope of inventions. The claims section reads like an orchestra—claiming the brass, flutes, percussion, and woodwinds all at once. And if it’s an opera, there will be a soloist with a three-octave range that shatters crystal, plus a foreign language added into the patentability equation.

The goal? File an independent claim for every medical invention potentially important to the owner.

🤠 This is Insane! Where’s the Hat and Where’s the Magical Rabbit?

Unlike a magician’s top hat, this requires a Texas ten-gallon hat because the patent application is so large.

In this business, people love the term “secret sauce.” In Texas, we know it's always the barbecue sauce, but at the USPTO, the secret sauce is the divisional application allowed by law.

The examiner builds the Magical Rabbit for you the moment they issue a "Restriction Requirement"—declaring that your application contains multiple distinct inventions and forcing you to select the one to prosecute first.

The big picture is: the USPTO cannot use any of the Magic Rabbit inventions to prevent patents from granting on the inventions in that Texas hat. Prognosticating magicians tend to distract us into watching either the left hand or the right hand – causing most of us to miss the knowledge of the government’s divisional gift.

The parent application moves forward, but the remaining inventions wait in the wings. Each subsequent divisional application safely inherits the parent's original filing date. Instead of an underwater submarine, the Magical Rabbit acts like a hot air balloon. It sits quietly on the launchpad until the Owner is ready to inflate it—floating into plain view right when a competitor launches a copycat device or an infringer steps onto the ground. At least, this is the way MPB’s attorney explained it.

When these divisional medical patents are granted, they sit inside that Texas hat. Because they are legally distinct patents, the hat’s owner can cleanly license or sell Patent A to Company 1, and Patent B to Company 2, etc.

🎽 The President’s Viewpoint

Some will declare that cascading divisional patents aren't fair. Others will master the strategy for their own benefit.

Massive volumes of capital are required to move the latest technology to the patient, and managing an active, unbundled portfolio gives innovators the leverage they need to fund the next generation. It can also lead to joint ventures.

At Medical Patents Broker Inc., we focus on orchestrating the technology to the patient. When it’s a US medical patent, we are ready to assist in transferring licensing and ownership rights. Any valid US medical patent can be evaluated for listing on the marketplace. We think MPB’s Lincoln “stove pipe hat” is bigger than the Texas hat.