The Mystery of the Hy Jacker

We're Texans here at Rice, and Texans love their cowboy boots. But something not everyone knows about cowboy boots is that they can be hard to remove.

During a conversation with a colleague from Rice's Lilie, I learned about the greatest boot jack ever sold: a transportable, fold-able, metal boot jack. She found it on Ebay, and asked me what the "patent pending" inscription meant.

It's hard to say without some. First, a product can only claim to have a patent pending if it meets a couple of criteria. At the most basic, some kind of patent application needs to have been filed. However, it could be either a provisional patent application or a regular (or nonprovisional) utility patent application. Without getting too deep into the technicalities and legal side of things, a provisional patent application is an unexamined version of an application that acts similar to a placeholder. Someone might file this before seeking out investors or clients, to ensure their claim on an invention is valid. After all, patents are granted to the first to file, and only inventions undisclosed prior to the patent process are patentable. Applicants then have 12 months (with some exceptions) to file the nonprovisional utility patent application, which is examined and can lead to obtaining a patent. 

Inventions that have a nonprovisional utility patent application on file can claim to have a patent pending, but might also say "patent applied for". [I suspect that "patent applied for" may be avoided because it is longer and just doesn't sound quite as good. Alliterations are appealing.]

However, her real interest was if it was too niche of a product, because if this boot jack was granted a patent, wouldn't it be easier to find? Perhaps more common on the market and not just a vintage listing?

Well, this got me wondering about the fate of the Hy Jacker and its patent. I did a basic preliminary search for portable, foldable boot jacks on Lens.org, and found one potential match. Yet, as my colleague had also learned from her own brief Lens search, this was not the same invention. She subsequently sent me a link with images of the Hy Jacker for reference.

The Hy Jacker's IP inscription

This is where the search heated up a little, and made its way into potential blog post territory.

I immediately noticed that right above "patent pending" was inscribed Hy Jacker, complete with federal registration mark.

Another view of the same part

Ah ha! With that, I could potentially search the trademark database for information on the manufacturer, which might give me a concrete piece of information to use in a patent search.

I might teach most people how to perform keyword patent searches, but if you ever have specific information on a patent, use it. That is much easier; save your keywords for discovery searches.

Finding the Hy Jacker trademark record was fairly easy. Issued registration number 1255353 in 1983, Hy Jacker® had a fairly short life as a federally registered mark. It was cancelled in 1990, for failure to file an acceptable declaration under Section 8. Which means, essentially, that the owners did not inform the USPTO it was still in use. (Or not in use under certain acceptable special circumstances, as it may be.) Since there are no documents available through the TSDR, it is hard to learn further details about the fate of the Hy Jacker® trademark.

Word image on the registration certificate and record

What we do gain is information on the name of the company and its location. If a patent was ever issued, this will help us. 

Unfortunately, we also learned that this product was probably manufactured between 1983 and 1990, so if it never was granted a patent, we may not be able to find much. Patent Public Search only has nonprovisional patent applications post March 2001. There are other resources that might have patent applications prior to that, but none of them have databases of provisional applications. 

VOILÀ! Our luck held! A quick session with Patent Public Search revealed that the Hy Jacker® received two patents, around the same time the trademark was registered. It was granted one utility and one design patent. 

Patent Public Search isn't for everyone, but I'm a librarian so I like query syntax

And, my colleague at Lilie may be in luck, too: these patents are definitely expired... she should get some of her entrepreneurship contacts on board with recreating the Hy Jacker®! 

Now, I don't know the fate of the Hy Jacker® company, but it seems to have been a sad one. It appears to have failed within a few years, maybe because the market wasn't large enough, or saturation was reached too quickly with a long-lasting product, or if perhaps the inventor (Robert C. McCormick) or the business ran out of money after registering too much IP too quickly. So it might not be a great idea to restart a business based on this product. But at the very least, she could have a few more made without fear of IP infringement.

Mystery solved, folks. Got any other IP cold cases? Your PTRC Rep is just a message/phone call away from closure.