The “Stud Solver” – Patenting an Improvement and Staying a Step Ahead of the Competition

One of the fun things about being a patent attorney is that I get to work with all types of gadgets and they’re the newest and the best inventions. I’m Rich Beem. I’m a patent attorney in Chicago and I’d like to tell you about some inventions that are in a closely related technology that is the field of one of my clients. This product is a very unique and valuable invention. Products of this kind have sold in the billions of dollars and the client’s profit margins and their competitiveness and their ability to keep competitors from copying their new and improved products is largely due to patents. So, what is this product? This is called the “stud solver”. And what it is for is it is a screw that goes into drywall and it has big threads up here that grip the drywall. Drywall is crumbly and it’s hard to get a screw to stay in because it tends to fall apart. Now, our client invented the original easy anchor product that was the first self-drilling drywall screw or drywall anchor. And it was a pretty good product and the patent on that has now expired. So what do you do when a patent expires? You make an improvement on the product and you patent the improvement now you’re a step ahead of the competitor. The advantage of this stud solver is that it has small wood screw type threads at this end so that when you drive it into the drywall, if you happen to hit a stud, this…these wood screws at this end will go into the stud and it will hold the anchor in place – or the screw in place. And it can easily be driven, typically it would be done with a power tool, but it can also be done with a hand tool – as with this Phillips screwdriver. And it goes very nice and surely into the drywall and it has great holding power. So that is the stud solver anchor. Now how do make a still further improvement? I’m going to talk now about another product that is on the market but is not as good. This is a product that is a hook for putting into drywall. And the idea of it is that if you get it to land exactly like this you can install something on it, you can place something on it. But it has a couple of drawbacks. One is it’s practically impossible to drive something like this, because if you try to drive it you’re inevitably going to have some wobble. And these wood screw type threads will end up ripping out the drywall and the whole thing will fall out and you have a big mess. So how can we apply this technology to another invention? Well here is a hook that was developed by my client and you can see that it uses the same kind of large drywall threads on this end and the same kind of wood gripping threads on this end, so that you can put it into drywall and if you hit a stud the wood screw type threads on this end will go straight into the stud and provide even more holding power. So, here’s the stud solver and here is the hook that uses the same kind of technology in a new use. Now the other nice thing about the design is that you can put a Phillips head screwdriver in here or a power driver and you can drive it into the drywall like this. And because it’s centered and on an axis, you can power it in there without the wobble that you have with trying to power this one in and you’ll end up having a nice sure grip. And then the finishing touch is that there are two holes here at the top and the bottom and additional screws can be put into there that help to hold the thing in place without rotating. You may have an invention, a technology that you’re particularly interested in and that you would like to patent. That’s what we do. We patent technology. We help people to get patents. We enforce patents and we defend people against patent infringement cases. If you have a patent matter, call us. We’re at 312-201-0011. I’m Rich Beem. Thank you for joining me!