Patent Pending

I’ve never actually filed for a patent. There’s a good reason for that; I’ve never invented anything. Wait! That’s not quite true. But I don’t think combining two different steak sauces to make my own special blend really counts!

Still, the fact that I’ve never come up with anything deserving of a patent didn’t stop the U.S. Patent And Trademark Office from sending me a letter. A letter to inform me that my patent application had been received and recorded. My patent was now pending, it said. They even gave me a number. Great! I only wish I knew what it was for!

I found the whole thing a little more than odd. Don’t they require a patent attorney for such things? And wouldn’t they send all correspondence through the attorney? Maybe not, I guess, because after all, I did get the letter.

Perhaps they were just making everything ready in anticipation of some forthcoming invention—something I have yet to conceive or devise. Or not. That would require a remarkable level of efficiency. And I’ve never seen anything run by the government that’s even remotely efficient.

Obviously, they had the wrong Bruce Borders. They apparently got Bruce the inventor, mixed up with Bruce the truck driver/author/artist/songwriter/dental technician—among a few other things. But I didn’t feel any compulsory need to tell them that. Not my responsibility. How they got my name, I’ll never know. Even more baffling is how they came up with my address for this other “me.” I’ll never know that either.

This was quite a few years ago and no, I never contacted them or responded to the letter. I just threw it in the trash. I didn’t figure my effort would do any good and it wasn’t really my problem anyway. Besides, I didn’t want to encourage them in their incompetence. No doubt, I’d still be trying to convince them they had the wrong guy! (Yes, I’ve dealt with government agencies before and they all seem to operate under the same erroneous assumption—that they never make mistakes).

I never heard anything else and I suppose they eventually located the right Bruce Borders. But, who knows? I could still wind up making a fortune off “my” invention—whatever it is. I’ve heard these things take time. Maybe it’s still pending. ~

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books, including: Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, Miscarriage Of Justice, The Lana Denae Mysteries, and The Wynn Garrett Series. Available in ebook at www.amazon.com/Bruce-A.-Borders/e/B006SOLWQS and paperback on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Books-a-Million. Bruce A. Borders is a proud member of Rave Reviews Book Club.

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