Friedrich Soennecken inventor of the Ring Binder should certainly wake up from his well-deserved final rest knowing that finally there is something/ somebody good enough to challenge his invention “Ring-binder” 133 years long reign in every office on the earth.
To my surprise, the new solution comes not in form of a complicated mechanism but as a single, flexible sheet of material cut a certain way. All rings and metal parts are eliminated. And it works. There is no sticking-out spine always taking the same space on the shelf even if empty. The New Ring-Less Binder is flexible and quite pleasant to handle, the same as the rest of this new family serving the same binding functions.
The Challenger has no worldwide ambitions currently trying to find a licensee for his invention in the U.S. and then eventually in the E.U.
This is not the first time the Reign of the Ring is challenged. There are numerous challenges to its rule sponsored by many companies. None of them were successful, lingering on the fringe of the Office market mostly due to the fact that they introduce their own sets of problems.
In the U.S. there is an additional problem with the office market dominated by very few big players with immense financial resources not taking any risks when it comes to the introduction of a product competing with their well-established best sellers.
To make things more palatable for inventors the 2011 Leahy–Smith America Invents Act effectively makes U.S. patents worthless and unenforceable by a small player not having financial resources to finance legal challenges. Leahy-Smith’s act sponsored by Big Tech effectively enables “Efficient Infringement” practiced by already established companies barring entry to the market for eventual startups/competition. Introduced by this legislation PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board ) enjoys well-deserved fame as a ” Patent killing squad” invalidating by own admission 84% of all challenged patents. The effect: Invention exodus to more promising lands already caught politicians’ attention in Congress. The problem is that the incoming Biden administration is already (11/29/20) hiring people from Big Tech with a cozy relationship with the Obama White House.
Thank you for your comment. Luckily for us-inventors thing looks much better on the other side of the Atlantic. With the EU budget for invention development 4 times as big as in the US (600 vs. 150 billion) and the Anti big Tech legislations there, we (American inventors) still have an opportunity in the EU. Statistically full 25% of all users of EU and WIPO patent systems are from the U.S.