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- IDiyas Inventors Newsletter October 14, 2025
IDiyas Inventors Newsletter October 14, 2025
Whether it’s the invisible force behind a straighter smile or the unseen adhesive keeping your bandage in place, invention works best when you hardly notice it until you can’t imagine life without it.
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Table of Contents
This Week's Patent News:
🧠 VLSI Wins $948M Verdict Against Intel. Intel was ordered to pay nearly $949 million to VLSI Technology LLC in one of the largest patent infringement verdicts of the year. The dispute centered on microprocessor technologies used in Intel’s flagship chips.
⚖️ USPTO Ends Expedited Design Patent Examination. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office finalized a rule eliminating the expedited examination process for design patents, citing resource constraints and a shift toward harmonized global standards.
🧬 Regeneron Settles Eylea Patent Dispute with Sandoz. Regeneron resolved its long-running patent battle with Sandoz over its eye drug Eylea and launched new infringement suits against other competitors in the UK High Court.
🧪 EU Opens Consultation on Patent Licensing Boycotts. The European Commission began consultations on allowing temporary group boycotts by standard implementers during licensing negotiations, a move that could reshape patent licensing dynamics across tech sectors.
New weekly USPTO Patents data have been added.
Top Cities:
|
|
Entity Type / Patent Type | Large (> 500 Employees) | Small (≤ 500 Employees) | Micro (Small Entity) |
Utility | 4,999 | 1,416 | 176 |
Design | 564 | 556 | 260 |
Plant | 5 | 10 | 0 |
*Where one patent can have more than one assignee, Entity data assignment as of October 7, 2025
🦷From Metal Mouth to Million-Dollar Smiles: The Invention of Invisalign
From Frustration to Fortune, The Startup That Straightened Teeth DifferentlyIn the late 1990s, Stanford MBA student Zia Chishti turned personal frustration with metal braces into one of the biggest dental innovations of the century. While wearing a retainer, he wondered whether a series of custom-made retainers could gradually realign teeth, without the discomfort and stigma of traditional braces. |  |
Teaming up with fellow Stanford student Kelsey Wirth, and later Gaurav Agarwal and Brian Freyburger, he co-founded Align Technology in 1997.
Their breakthrough, Invisalign, combined computer-aided design (CAD) and 3D printing to create clear, removable aligners customized to each patient. This digital workflow—scanning teeth, modeling incremental shifts, and producing thermoplastic aligners revolutionized orthodontics. The team secured patents, including U.S. Patent No. 6,217,325 (1999), to protect their method.
At first, orthodontists were skeptical that plastic aligners could match metal braces. But clinical trials, FDA approval (1998), and smart marketing aimed at adults valuing aesthetics shifted perceptions. By 2001, Align Technology went public, raising over $100 million and signaling a new era in dental care.
Today, Invisalign has treated over 15 million patients worldwide. Align Technology continues to refine its system with AI, tele-dentistry, and advanced materials like SmartTrack and SmartForce. What began as a grad-school idea is now a multi-billion-dollar global industry, proving that innovation often springs from outsider thinking and user-centered design. The Invisalign story exemplifies how one person’s inconvenience can spark a revolution blending technology, entrepreneurship, and human confidence.
Stories like these are what we live for at IDiyas.
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Trivia
Guess which one was patented first, and consider how it changed the world. Ready? Let’s go! Telephone vs. Light Bulb
Please scroll to the bottom of this newsletter to find out.
Featured Inventor
Audrey Sherman, Division Scientist, Inventor Extraordinaire, Master of All Things Sticky
Audrey Sherman, a Division Scientist with Solventum has spent over three decades at 3M, turning chemistry into magic, and adhesives into art. With a B.S. in Chemistry and a minor in Art from Augsburg College, Audrey has blended science and creativity into a career that’s as colorful as it is technical. She holds more than 165 U.S. patents, many of which have revolutionized how things stick, unstick, and stick again. Her work spans acrylates, silicones, crosslinked polymers, and microstructured PSAs, though she'll tell you she knows all three sides of the tape (a joke only a real materials scientist can make). From gram-scale synthesis to ton-scale manufacturing, she's seen it all, glued it all, and improved it all. |  |
Today in Patent History
📸 How George Eastman's Film Patent Made Photography for Everyone?
On October 14, 1884, George Eastman received U.S. Patent No. 306,594 for his groundbreaking invention: photographic film. Replacing cumbersome glass plates with a flexible roll of film, Eastman made photography far more convenient and accessible. This simple yet powerful innovation transformed the field, enabling photographers to take multiple exposures without reloading after every shot. More importantly, it paved the way for Eastman’s Kodak camera, which brought photography into the hands of everyday people. His patent didn’t just change how we capture memories, it sparked the rise of amateur photography and democratized an art form once limited to professionals. |  U.S. Patent No. 306,594 |
Introducing New Data Products and Enhancements
💡From INVENT to INVEST — Just One Letter (and One Vault) Away |
INVENT and INVEST are nearly identical. Swap the N for an S, and you turn ideas into impact. |
That’s no accident.
It took us 200 years to print the first USD trillion. We are now printing this amount every 100 days. No wonder Gold and Bitcoin prices are going up. Please see the UpFront Research Report on the keyword “bitcoin”. This report can be accessed by our Go Pro Paid members. |
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Centurion Patentors
Congratulations to last week's Centurion Patentors! |
The Centurion Patentors are 0.185% of ALL Inventors worldwide who hold more than one hundred U.S. patents. They are the Navy SEALs of innovation. They don’t just have good ideas once; they’ve built a discipline, a repeatable process for turning thought into impact. |
We are excited to welcome the following inventors into these prestigious patent clubs: |
Trivia
Answer: ✅ First patented: Telephone
Alexander Graham Bell received U.S. Patent No. 174,465 on March 7, 1876.
Thomas Edison didn’t patent his practical incandescent light bulb until January 27, 1880.
💡 Fun Fact: Bell beat his rival Elisha Gray to the patent office by just a few hours. So yes, innovation is a race... and the early bird gets the wires.
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