04-11-25 *INTERVIEW* Listener Jim Who for 40 Years Has Been a Patent Illustrator

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't even I don't even remember just how this
came up. But oh, I remember we were talking about
toilet paper. We're talking about toilet paper, and listener Jim
sent me a picture of a late eighteen hundreds illustration
for a patent for a toilet paper roll. And then
Jim said, I'm a patent illustrator and I've been doing

(00:22):
this for many years. And I said, that sounds like
a fascinating job. Would you be willing to tell us
a little bit about it on the show? And he
said yes, So Jim joins us. Now, Hi, Jim, Hey,
how you doing ross Really good? I'm fascinated by your job.
So first of all, tell us did you did you
train as an artist.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
More of a draft person with electrical and mechanical background
and stuff like that, and it's kind of a mix
between that and illustration and artist.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Okay, so what was the first patent you ever illustrated?
And then and then what exactly I mean? I think
it's I think it's sort of defined in the words,
But just tell us a little bit about what a
patent illustration is in the sense of what exactly it's
supposed to show. Are these like the exploded views you

(01:18):
see in the manuals.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
To a degree, it is essentially I don't remember what
I dorew for the first time because it was like
forty five years ago, but it was put four Bell
Labs in New Jersey. And basically, a person has an
idea of a of a night for an invention, and
they go to an attorney, generally a patent attorney, and

(01:42):
then the patent attorney comes up with some ideas of
what kind of figures illustrations that they need to describe
the invention, and so then they give that to an
illustrator and sometimes we have sketches to start with, or
sometimes we even have cad drawings, and then we can
start the illustration and show several different figures around five

(02:06):
sheets or so what the invention is, sometimes cross sectional views,
sometimes just nice pictures, and sometimes it's humans. Sometimes it's
you know, it could be anything that we have to draw,
and then we have numbers on it to describe certain
parts of it. And those reference numbers are what the
attorney gives to us to help them describe in a

(02:29):
specification for an illustration that makes sense.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
And I'll note for listeners, if you're a nerd like
I am. You know this already, but back in the day,
Bell Labs was one of the most fascinating inventive places ever,
right the ideas, the electronic the stuff they were coming
up with at Bell Labs was revolutionary and fascinating. So

(02:57):
one of the things I wonder about, Jim with your
job is how how much do you have to know
about the thing that you're drawing and how do you
learn it?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's a pretty good question. It's a good idea to
have a background to be able to understand how things
kind of work, and so you have to have a
mechanical background to do that. And a lot of times
the drawings that you get from the inventors are pretty
self describable. I mean, you can understand them. But a

(03:35):
lot of times I don't even know what the pattern is.
I mean, I can look at the specification now if
I want, because they work for a law firm and
the attorney's work. I work with the attorneys on that,
but I mean they're doing the description stuff. I need
to know more detail. I can read what they've written.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Can you ever talk to the inventor and ask them
to explain it to you?

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Rarely the attorneys know all that information already, Okay, where
I'm at now. Years ago, when I was on my
own after Bell Labs, then I had to talk with
several attorneys and it was very difficult because they don't
understand a lot of them don't understand the whole process
of filing patents. So they asked me to do a
lot of things that I would suggest that they're not doing.

(04:19):
I'm not an attorney, but I would just try to
describe to them things that are important, things that are
not important, least for the drawings.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
Is there anything that sticks out in your mind as
the most difficult patent illustration you've ever done?

Speaker 2 (04:34):
Difficult wise, Yes, there was a game years and years
ago before I worked at this law firm. It was
a puzzle and it was like a series of line
of wires that were all mixed up together, and it
was like as big as a hand. But there are
two pieces and they were intertwined with each other, and

(04:55):
there's a way somehow that you could rotate this so
that it would unlocked from each other, so you have
two pieces and it looked like a hand mixer or
something like that. I forget what you call those, Yeah,
like a whist, but there's a lot more of those wires.
And so all I had was a picture that the

(05:18):
attorney gave to me, not the model itself. And then
I had to draw or what they call a design case.
A design case is not a utility case. A design
case you get a pattern on what it looks like
utility cases on what it does. So this was a
design case, so I had to draw correct And so
basically with the design case, you have to draw a

(05:39):
perspective view or two, and then all the orthographic views,
which is the front, right, left, top, bottom of whatever.
So I'm drawing this and I'm realizing I have no
idea how to really draw this and draw all the
views that will look good. And it took me hours
and hours and hours, and the attorney finally said, after
I gave it to him, he said, is this correct?

(06:01):
And I said, tell you what you show me where
I'm wrong, and I'll correct it. So you know, that
was really complicated, really hard to do. But I never
got anything back to the attorney on that, so I
assume it was.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Okay, we're just about out of time. I'll ask you
a slightly personal question. Can can you make can you
make a decent living as a patent illustrator?

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yes, I'm working for a law firm where I have
time off and benefits. It's great. I was on my
own for a while and I had up to thirteen
employees way back when. Wow, and yeah, we do pretty good.
I mean there are some people who are just traps
people and they can barely draw anything by hand. So
if you've got a real talent to draw and know

(06:45):
how to use a computer to do that, then you
could produce pretty quickly. And you know, I can draw.
I d go thousands of sheets every year. So yes, you
can make a pretty good living doing that. And it's
a lot of fun. I mean, I love doing it.
When I retire, I still want to work part time
because I enjoy doing it. It's kind of artistic for me.
So I got a great job and I love it.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
It sure does sound like a lot of fun. Jim Listener,
Jim is a patent illustrator. Thanks so much for taking
time with us, Jim, I really enjoyed the conversation and
enjoyed learning what you do. Okay, not a problem, all right,
Thank you.