James M. Singer was featured in the Trib Total Media article "Pine-Richland Student Lands Patent Approval for Social Media Shake-To-Like Idea." Full text can be found in the October 27, 2015, issue, but a synopsis is below.
Pine-Richland senior, Brandon Singer, has developed a method of interacting with social media by using a "shake-to-like" feature which allows users to show positive interest in a post by simply shaking a device.
The idea came to Brandon after he and some friends were scrolling through social media outlets during a study hall and experienced difficulty clicking certain areas due to compact layout designs used for mobile platforms.
Brandon decided to seek the guidance of his father, James Singer, who is a Partner at Fox Rothschild LLP and is chair of the Firm's Intellectual Property Department.
He discovered that there had not been any similar patent requests filed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office which helped push the idea forward.
Due to the fact that Brandon had not created an application at this point in time, he worked with his father to make an outline of how a person would create it.
"One of the requirements of patent law is that the inventions have utility," James Singer said. "It has to be able to work... If it hasn't been built yet, we have to make sure that we can describe it in a way that allows it to be built. You have to enable the reader to make and use the invention. It's an instruction manual."
After a two year wait, Brandon received confirmation from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office that his "shake-to-like" method had been approved.
"The average wait time at the patent office runs 18 to 24 months depending on the area of technology that you're in," James Singer said. "It actually used to be worse."
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