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Patents for the Little People?
_ph1ux_ asks: "I have an idea that i would like to patent. I have called several patent attorney's in the San Francisco Bay Area and inquired about the costs associated with doing a patent search and filing. I was quoted a flat fee for the search by some, ranges by others - and some more sound sounding advice from others. Some attorney's want $450 for the search and a range of $3-6,000 for the filing - with up to six months before they are ready to just file the application for you.
I have been researching on USPTO website to see if there are any pre-existing patents that cover my idea now for several days, and so far have found none. In the past I was able to quickly locate existing patents that thwarted my previous patent attempts - so this time it looks promising. My personal feelings for attorneys and lawyers aside - I want to know what have other slashdotters done with regards to pursuing patents, specifically if it is at all possible for an IANAL to successfully apply for a patent (cheaply)? Can you tell me what other avenues there are for me online or otherwise, while not giving away a large stake in my invention?"
...just file it yourself. Last I checked this was a valid option, if you don't mind the mountain of paperwork.
Karma: Not Particularly Funny.
*Whips out paper and pen*
So what exactly does this product do? Please be as specific as possible, and email me any drawings you have of said product, including highly detailed autocad drawings.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
IANAL but I would suggest you consult one. Don't hold that against me, IANAL!! Anyway if you can't consult one you could just simply file your patent and see if it gets rejected (IANAL Don't quote me on that!!!). Anyway, IANAL, good luck.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
If you patent, you're a capitalist monster!
Share your knowledge with your fellow man!
I have an idea that i would like to patent.
Traditionally, you couldn't patent ideas, only implementations...
Of course, the USPTO has ignored that for at least a decade...
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
Put your idea in writing, the more detailed the better. Mail it to your self via the united states post office and do NOT open it. Then you should still file for a patent.
Yes IANAL
What's your patentable idea?
I for one don't like the idea of patents. I feel they are bad for society. Just put them in the public domain.
Did you need one more proof that patents are *not* there to help normal people ? Utopist.
I strongly recommend going to to do searches on trademarks for your idea.
Also, I like "Patent It Yourself", which is how I got my patent application filed. It's a really good text. Also, if you need representation, talk to the guys at GrayCary. They are a good bunch of folks, and they will do some consulting gratis and defer payment......
The Dopester
"Yes, I'm a Karma Whore, but I'm doing it to pay my way through school."
If you are greedy, then patent it and exploit the fact that you were first to think of it.
If you care about everyone else, publish your invention here and share it, thereby preventing someone else with more money from patenting it.
In case you haven't guessed, I don't think patents are fair, or that they promote innovation. They promote greed and perverse incentives that waste societys resources. Patents make life difficult for those who really want to work together with everyone else to just make things better.
Just sell your idea to M$ and live off the interest. That is, of course, if your idea is worthy of Billy G.
=]
-Valiss
That's why I mail myself empty envelopes once a month...
Wow, I didn't realise that it costs thousands of dollars to check out a patent. So what do those guys who make "joke" patents do, like the guy who patented how to sit on a swing, or the patent on how to tie your shoelaces and crap like that, do people really spend $5000 just to show that the Patent Office misses daft patent applications ? Presumeably *they* (the silly patent people) can do it cheaply ?
I believe that the Tolkien Estate currently holds the patents on 'Little People', also known as 'Hobbits' or 'Halflings'.
You might be able to find an attorney that will do the work without a flat fee in exchange for a percentage of the revenue stream created by the patent. We have a family friend whose father was a patent attorney and did *very well*, thank you by taking this approach on occasion.
The usual warnings about finding an ethical attorney (an oxymoron, I know) would likely apply even more in this situation, though.
This is nice and timely! I've been thinking about this myself lately, and I've wondered something different: In todays highly litigatious society, are you opening yourself up for alot of hassle in filing a patent? No question that getting your origonal idea locked in before anybody else is a good thing, but what happens when somebody challanges you, or you have to challange somebody else? It may be a remote possiblity, but are 'the little guys' assuming lots of personal risk in basically defying the world to capitalize on their idea? You find a lawyer with a flat rate to file your patent, then what? Where are you going to get the tens of thousands it would likely cost to defend your patent in court? Did the flat rate cover him actually reading the patent to determine if it's overbroad or worse, not broad enough? There seems to be alot to think about with a patent, especially if you don't have in house counsel at your disposal. This is a pretty glib way to think about it, putting patents in the category of those nice things that protect big business but are out of reach of the little guys.
"These people look deep within my soul and assign me a number based on the order in which I joined" --Homer re:
IANAL, but I predict that the comments in this article will lure lots of porn lurkers from Google.
"Derp de derp."
Buy a copy of Patent it yourself, by Nolo press, eg at Amazon. It is a VERY good text on how to go through the patent process, both with and without a lawyer.
Test your net with Netalyzr
While this method works in some jurisdictions as a method of copyrighting at common law, you cannot patent something in this manner. Of course IANA(Patent)L.
I suggest you stay away from the invention stealing corporations...
That might be an ok way to show prior-art, but that's not a good way to make money off the idea. I think that it is/was a valid form of copyright that many aspiring musicians use. It only works if you plan on producing something, and don't want them to sue you.
Myself and 2 colleagues filed a patent over a year ago with a patent attorney in Minnesota. He claimed that the cost would not exceed $5000 and he would not need most of the money until near the end. He has not lived up to his side of the bargain. Mostly these things come down to individuals. Find out who you are dealing with and make sure that you trust him. Make sure that you understand as much of the process as possible so that you can ensure that you are getting what you paid for. And remember it can up to 1 year before you hear anything and often the first thing you will receive is a letter of rejection.
You must use a patent attorney ... why ... cause when YOU fuck it up and loose your patent and money because you did not use a professional you will look like a complete moron who got what he deserved.
... all those profesional web developers charge huge and varying money ... can't I just do it for nix ... HTML looks easy after all" ... fast forward 3 months and then they wonder why their site has security holes, looks like shit, gets hacked etc. Do you see the parallels
... if it is worth doing do it properly. Spend the money on a professional ... don't do a half ass job your self.
... well, almost (1 year away from being one) and studying IP law right now ... and from a family working in Patent law. (although I have spent the last 7 years installing networks). Get on with your programming and leave the lawering to the lawyers
"so I want to set up a website
Moral of the story
BTW IAAL (I am a lawyer)
J
If you are worried about the cost to file the patent, why on earth are you bothering? With the exception of your resume, having a patent will be absolutely valuless to you unless you are willing to pay your lawyers to sue someone infringing on your patent.
If you don't have the money to file, you don't have the money to defend your patent.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
On the other hand, not everyone has the right skills and mindset to search for prior art well, which is important.
Similarly he says (and I sure believe) that it is very important to write your patent very very clearly, and to have very clear diagrams, because if the patent is ever contested, you want to be able to convince a non-technical jury as easily as possible.
That kind of clarity of writing and creating diagrams is not all that common, so using professional help might be in order.
Then again, not all professionals are all that great at clarity, either! Many patents' writing suck, IMHO.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
A patent prosecutor is not a patent attorney. It's somenone who has experience with the patenting process and can help you with the whole filing procedure (including proper redaction of description, drawings, claims, citation of prior and related art, etc.), and followup process after filing.
Their fees are usually much cheaper than attorney fees, and you don't need an attorney unless (until) you litigate.
As for everyone you hire, check for their background and experience - the claims in particular require very careful writing.
Hope this help
Mailing something to yourself to use the postmark to establish prior art is also known as a "poor man's copyright"
IANAL -- though I am not anal.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
If its primary purpose is to decorate the wall of your den and impress people at Superbowl parties, then by all means, do it yourself. If you actually intend to base a company around the technology covered by the patent, then you're deluding yourself if you try to draft and prosecute the patent yourself. I can tell you, as a former patent examiner and as a practicing patent attorney, it's a very few lucky inventors (or those who have had lots of involvement in the patenting process at the corporate level) who get any type of claim coverage worth having.
In fact, there are so many potential pitfalls and minefields, the Patent Office will generally recommend that you get an attorney or agent once they realize that you're pro se (doing it yourself). It's just too easy to draft a specification that is nonenabling (in which case you've wasted your filing fee), to draft claims that are too narrow or exclude the commercial embodiment of the invention, or narrow the claims during prosecution in a way that creates an estoppel (stops you from claiming that someone who makes insubstantial changes to his device to avoid you claims nevertheless is an infringer).
Try working with smaller firms, and look for firms that use patent agents, rather than attorneys. These are people who have passed the exam qualifying them to prosecute patent applications, but generally are paid less (and billed out for less per hour) than attorneys. Then let an attorney do the actual prosecution, since they tend to be more familiar with issues that relate to litigation, like file history estoppel, etc.
You can do some of the work yourself but you also need to consult a lawyer experienced in the area if you want a useful patent. In particular, you need to write as broad a claim as possible to avoid having a patent which is easy to work around via slight modifications.
Why do midgets now need patents? Do they know something we don't know? If so, what?
I would expect a lot of posts basically saying "patents are (or have become) for rich corporations to hoard their cash and take out the little guy. Here's my .02 cents:
If the lawyers are charging that much, do some research on your own and figure out how to do it yourself. Here are some quick links as starting points I found from google (I could wonder why the author didn't do this first, but oh well):
The US patent office homepage.
The patent grant and patent application.
The patent database. Your 200$/hr lawyer would probably look here.
You're on your own here, but a google search also returns some commercial websites that automate the process for you. The sponsored ad that came up in google seems reasonable. Another sponser ad was a book, which details how to apply for patents yourself (the reviews seem nice, but they always are).
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
done that.
Looking back On my experience I say, just fill out the paperwork, and file for yourself.
For an individual, it is only a few hundred bucks. If it is in conflict, they will send you a notice and you can find out what patent caused it to fail, then make relevent changes yourself. I believe you get 2 tryies after the original for free.
This is on there web stie, and since filling will cost you as much, if not less, then having an attorney do the search, why use them?
as you probably know, all the filling is coded.
for example, all diary products would have a designation, for this example lets say it 11.
then all isc cream product will have a a designation, let say 22.
so if you were looking for an ice cream product, you would look under 1122xxx
I'm not sure og the actual designation, this was only an example.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This actually doesnt work, but cant hurt. It is a myth used for movie scripts. One of the best ways to start is to get a bound notebook and start writing everything down in ink, NOT pencil. Cut and paste (literally) other pertinent info, and have the bottoms of each page signed by 2 people who arent family, but are fairly knowledgable about what they're witnessing... dates are important too. Lots more stuff... but I dont rememeber. Hope that helps.
Oleg
There are so many little getchas in the process, and knowing the langauge and how to dot the i's and cross the t's is extremely important, if you want to have a robust patent.
Additionally, while you can use the patent search systems to see about patents that are issued - patent lawyers have their own mechanisms and can often do a much better job of the process.
Remember, this is about protecting your intellectual property and idea - you don't want to have a mistake or it will possible be thrown out or challenged (which can be very very costly). If you spend a bit more money upfront to get the job done correctly, and then something happens, you have additional fall-back to pursue.
All patent attorneys I have ever dealt with have always told us what they wanted in the way of write-ups, which we provide. Then they came back to us with EXTREMELY DETAILED questions. It's quite extrodinary to see a non-technical person do it - but they do. And I think that's the point... because the patent process is LESS about what your patenting and MORE about making sure it's patented CORRECTLY. So they seek definitions, and they use those definitions to ensure that your unique, and if your not unique, they get you to redefine it until you are. A pretty valuable service if you ask me.
Remember too, it's all about the CLAIMS. And every patent I've ever read are VERY VERY difficult to read and understand. Usually patents take many readings, and pouring over the claims to understand what they mean in relation to each other. I seriously doubt if you have the ability to read the claims in the same way a patent attorney does - since it's in their language, not yours (unless your a lawyer ;).
One final thought... because you are the inventor I submit to you that you are too close to your invention to be impartial about what it takes to describe your invention properly so that it is protected. What you would tend to fluff off as not be competiting or infringing, others may differ with you. It should be invaluable to you to have a professional second opinion from someone who knows how to do it.
And don't go for the cheapest one you can find either ;)
Aloha
this is a myth. Google it and u will find your answer, im to lazy to look.
A patent lawyer gave a speech in a undergrad class of mine all those years ago...
The stated that the difficult thing about getting a patent approved is getting the language of the application correct.
The USPTO is expecting certain language, format, and degree of description in an application. If the application does not meet their requirements, they will reject it, and ask that you rewrite and resubmit it.
The benefit of patent lawyers is that they understand how to create patent applications, while the rest of us apparently really really suck at it. With a lawyer you can get the patent approved the first go around, instead of wasting months a years trying to write it yourself.
So you need to decide, is getting the patent done quickly and efficently worth 6Gs? Or do you want to risk spending years rewriting your application, and find that someone else gets the patent in the meantime?
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
Maybe a little bit off-topic, but is there some way to "protect" an idea from being patented other than a patent? I mean like a GPL for patents (yes, I know copyright and patents are quite different). I might come up with something I think is a good idea but want all people to be able to use it for their own needs without restricting others. Again, something like the GPL for copyrights.
/. but I was too lazy to search for it, sorry...)
(I suspect this has been asked before at
If this really works, then I'm gonna mail myself an unsealed envelope every day. Maybe two.
Hi ho!
Rhett
There are companies who will for a percentage of your take submit patents on your behalf. Yea, I know you give up some back end, may have to give up on the front end as well, but it should be cheaper.
Personally if you have a unique and novel idea that you think might be worth some money some day I don't see why you are balking at legal fees. I would give the attorneys a call again, and see if you can do some of the work and let them do the bits you are not comfortable with.
Anyone can submit a patent. You can change parts of the patent once it is submitted (just about everything but the claims I think, if you quote me you are a fool.)
What I would do is:
1) Go to the USPTO and look at a bunch of patents.
2) Make a really good stab at copying what they have done.
3) Do an as exhaustive search as you can, citing patents that might infringe upon your patent as well as patents your patent my depend upon.
4) Go to the patent attorney with that and then let them do what you haven't done,
5) File it.
It will still cost you some money, but since you will have done most of the work yourself. It should not be too expensive. If you really want to know how to file a patent get a job at a company where intellecutal property is a big deal. Let them patent a few of your ideas and make sure to sit in on all the meetings that pertain to your patent. Quit and then start filing your own.
Jer,
And the answer is that there is no answer. If you are idea is good you want worldwide coverage since US coverage will simply force somebody to move offshore. However, if you end up staying solely on US soil you have to fork over the money. The problem of not doing that is that you will get a poorly worded patent.
Consider it as follows. Would you actually let a lawyer write your code for you? Not at all since a lawyer does not understand code and you do not understand lawyer speak.
That is why patent reform (eradication) is necessary. Patents only serve to protect those with money and not who should have coverage namely small time inventors.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
50% Offtopic I guess... but whatever.
Lots of people drink whiskey. It could be any product, I'm just using whiskey as an example because that's what I was drinking as I thought of this (which probably shows how clear my line of thinking was). If the proccess for making whiskey were invented in the US in our day and age, say by Seagrams or something... could that process be pattented? Or, if nothing else, could the name 'whiskey' be trademarked so anyone else that attempted to market it would have to give it another name?
Just a "what if"...
If you don't want to spend the money to get a patent, I have to wonder if you plan to make any money from it. Is this a Patent Granted on Sideways Swinging sort thing?
That is a decades-old urban legend (check with absolutely any lawyer, intellectual property book/website etc).
E.g. a quick search finds this on the subject: cbsnews.com
Moderators please mod that down (it's currently at 3, informative) for disseminating harmful misinformation.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
1) Write it down. Date it. Sign it.
2) File a preliminary patent application. It's only $60 apx? Beware that whe nyour patent issues this preliminary patent can be viewed by the public. 3) Have two people you trust AND who will understand it read it and sign & date the document
4) Existing patent are a good thing. Yu will need to demonstrate to the PTO that you idea is close, but not the same. Do not hide any prior art or close to prior art. The reason is that should these other patent holders see your work they will say, "hey, this looks close we'd better go after them." If you patent lists these their patent you can say, "hey, the PTO looked at you patents and said they are different." The more "close, but no cigar" that you can find the better.
5) Go ahead and do the leg work. Look at patents from IBM, etc for good examples, but beware even IBM files some stinkers. Even write it. Remember you pay by the claim.
6) At least pay for a couple of hours of a patent lawer's time to "proof-read it." You shouold be able to find a solo patent lawer who will be flexable.
7) Are you sure that you need a patent?
Exactly right, not that your date will matter, but when the post office stamps the date on there, it can be used appropriately. Of course, if you don't have the money to defend your idea, it is a waste of your time.
http://tomgould.com/
Repeat after me: The plural form does not take an apostrophe. The plural form does not take an apostrophe. The plural form does not take an apostrophe. etc.
To the point, I say get a lawyer and do it right if it's worth doing at all. Doing a halfass job of establishing prior art would make an after-the-fact battle somewhat easier, but if you really think you've got something here, talk to someone who does this for a living.
Now mod this down and get it over with.
In other news, astrophysicists have announced that they now know what all that dark matter is: it's stupidity.
Get a copy of Patent It Yourself as mentioned above. Then do the patent search yourself at a local patent depository library. An online search is not enough. Luckily for you, the San Francisco Main Library is a United States Patent & Trademark Depository Library! Go to the 5th floor, and there they are, all the patent gazettes, AND the complete collection of CDroms to allow you to do your own patent search! Expect to devote 2-3 days for a thorough search. Sometimes the staff there can provide advice. And thats that!
This space available.
the idea is heavily marketed. Why patent something? Because you want to make $$ off it. Try bigideagroup.net, they take your idea, patent it if they like it, then you sit back and collect royalties. I'm doing it right now, gunnin for 5k/month to start.
heh..your being a future lawyer does make your post irrelevent, as a future chef i could say 'don't cook yourself, always eat out' and sure that might be sound advice fore the realization that home cooking is some of the best and the only true way to connect with your food. By scratching the backs of your fellow lawyers, you irrelevate your own point.
Pras
Sometimes, you can, you go to hell for the rest of your life! That's a true thing.
Patents are a good thing. But remember what Bob Metcalfe said. Paraphrasing, 'people have a great idea and they get a patent and think they're going to get rich and it doesn't happen. You have to then start a company to market your idea. otherwise it'll get stolen by people who have mucho lawyers and you'll see nothing.'
Doing it yourself isn't always the same as doing a half fast job.
See the Pictures of the Flood of '08
I'm surprised that you're wasting time doing patent searches or thinking that one will help you. A lot of companies specifically train their employees NOT to look for prior art, patents or anything like that. The general rule of patents is that virutally anything can be patented. The bar for originality is so low that you can probably get a valid claim for something in your "invention"
Far, far more important for potential inventors IMO are the following "Rules":
1. Your claims should be short. If they're more than three lines long they're probably too specific so that infringement is unlikely.
2. Make sure you get a really good patent law firm. There are only about 6 of them in the USA IMO. If I see a patent by some other firm out of that set I'm not worried about it because it's probably badly written or flawed in some other way. Sorry - you'll have to work out who they are.
3. Get as many patents as you can premptively. Use them as a shield against anyone who might think about suing you. Basically, stake out enough claims to the area you're working on so that you have a likely chance of counter suing if someone tries in on you. This also goes to Rule #2 - you want them to think twice before they take you on. That's a defensive strategy but it works, for example, how many companies have tried to sue IBM? IBM have so many patents that even if you think you've got them, they will probably be able to pull out a stack of patents that you're probably infringing.
Hey, this is a cynical view of patent land but it's also reality IMO.
Cliff
They'll never award you a patent on little people. They've been around forever.
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Can you start over from the beginnining with more details on your idea?
All I know is that anytime you talk to a non-lawyer, you'll very quickly
hear, "So what's your idea?" I'm curious as to where to actually draw
the line on this.. Who should you actually reveal your idea to?
Should you keep everything in your head/notes until it's time to fill out
the patent forms?
Maybe roll your own non-disclosure agreements for friends/associates
otherwise?
Well HERE'S an IP question - remember the thread on the guy who wanted to archive EULAs to track restrictive terms and someone said the next restrictive term would be 'no archiving' ? Well, wouldn't that be making it a secret contract, which I am pretty sure is illegal...?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I was just going over this with a coworker... I'd suggest filing a provisional application to claim priority and protect your ownership rights, but then try to find someone with deeper pockets to follow it up with a formal application though a patent lawyer. Like others I advise against DIY unless you alread have some experience with the process as there are lots of little gotchas.
Unlike a "real" application there are no formal requirements for text or drawings for provisional applications except that they ultimately fit in an 8.5x11. All you need is a cover sheet and an $80 fee if you do it yourself.
Here are a few decent links:
http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa061701 a.htm
http://www.bpmlegal.com/provapp.htmlThis one is also pretty decent and a bit more DIY info http://www.frompatenttoprofit.com/provisional_pate nt_aps.htm
Finally, the software mentioned there seems useful... http://www.patentwizard.com/ and so are their FAQs http://www.patentwizard.com/htmls/support.htm, but if you were to go that route, you'd be out $580 for the software, filing and a flat fee review by their attorneys.
Various universities have invention disclosure forms posted on the www (see e.g. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe =UTF-8&q=invention.disclosure.forms) That ask all the right questions. Look at some of these and adapt them for your needs, this will drive you to pout all the information together in the right form and send it to the PTO with the cover sheet and your $80.
Balam
it's been pointed out to me by IP lawyers on more than one occaision clarity is not necessarily an advantage...
The trick to a patent filing is to reveal enough to lock up the field, while revealing little enough to to permit the patent to be interpretted as broadly as possible. This is something that takes experience, which the self-filer will rarely possess
we typically have BS degrees in Eng, CS, Phy, Chem, and Bio.
In fact, you cannot even take the patent bar without a tech degree....
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
The cover image
Test your net with Netalyzr
If your aim is to use your patent to gouge money out of others, better get a lawyer. He will probably think of things to claim that you wouldn't, and he will be much more likely to write them up so they will stand up in court.
Finally, if this is worth so little to you that the cost of having a patent attorney do the work isn't justifiable, is it really worth patenting at all?
See what I've been reading.
- Go to an inventors group that meets at Santa Clara University one Sat a month. http://www.inventorsalliance.org/
- The Sunnyvale Library has an inventor/patent/trademark/copyright section
or ask a librarian about libraries that have a good patent section - most cities
have such a branch
Someone ought to mod this up -- this is what companies do with lab notebooks to deal with patent work, because not only do you have to show that it's novel, you have a certain time frame in which you need to do the work [it can also stand up in court as to who actually has done the work first]
In most places I've worked, it's also common practice to do work on only one side of the page, fill each page as much as possible, and date anything that is cut and pasted in before it is signed.
Am I the only one that read 'Little People' as 'midgets'?
Why are little people being patented? Has human cloning progressed to the point that there is a lucrative industry in creating mini yous and me?
"Dying tickles!" -- Ralph Wiggum
...and I write patent applications (plant patents, as opposed to utility patents) all the time.
My company has had dozens of plant patents granted, and the vast majority of them were done without lawyers.
I highly recommend Nolo Press's Patent It Yourself -- it walks you through the process and assumes you know nothing about it.
You have to be patient; the process, from application to grant, takes anywhere from 18 to 36 months. Also, filing with "small entity" status will halve most of the fees, but you'll need deep pockets in any case.
Good luck!
IANAL but I've looked into patenting things, and I know that the postmarked envelope is NOT accepted as proof of first date. A patent must be disclosable, so the first thing to do is to write out your idea in a clear manner, find at least two persons that can read and understand it, then have them witness (with date) the paper.
Look up Nolo Press (in Berkeley, CA) and see what they publish on the matter -- their self-help legal books are excellent.
David Pressman's book Patent It Yourself has proved a pretty good step-by-step reference for doing this. It's only forty bucks, a heck of a lot less than what you would have to give to some leech^H^H^H^Hawyer.
I work for a company that pays us a few peanuts for patentable ideas and recently scored a few. I was surprised at the complexity of the documents and the process in general, it is not friendly to amateurs. You should probably hire a patent agent if you are serious. Do your best to make sure the idea isn't already taken. One site that helps a lot is Delphion (http://www.delphion.com/), they specialize in searches but you have to pay for the complete service. One thing to remember is that a search won't show anything about patents which have been applied for but not granted yet (may take several years) but a prior application will trump yours if there is a substantial similarity. Its a gamble.
Before you turn over your invention to unicron, you should definitely have your lawyer write a non-disclosure agreement. If you disclose your invention to the general public, you quickly become ineligible for a patent in the United States. Only something that's currently a trade secret can be patented.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Generally, the PTO's database is fairly difficult to search from the outside. While I work on the Trademark side of the Office, I can't imagine the Patent searching of the Office's database is easier.
Additionally, (most) attorneys know the language the PTO is looking for, as well as how to word your initial claim so that it is broad enough to cover everything. You don't have the experience to do that. It would be akin to asking a typist to set-up your network.
The USPTO makes it quite easy to file a patent or a trademark on-line for the average citizen (a pro se applicant). It is part of the Office's "strategic plan". However, I can tell you that the law for both patents and trademarks is full of little rules and requirements. Well over half of the applications I see on the Trademark side end up being abandoned 6 months later. I'd estimate that at least 80% of the pro se filed applications wind up abandoned for one reason or another. Unfortunately many of those end up abandoning because the applicant gets a long Office Action (i.e., a letter) from an examiner that has some fairly simple requirements that sound complicated becauase of the poorly worded form paragraphs the Office uses and the myriad of statutes that are cited.
At the same time, it never hurts to file and see what happens. The filing fees are a little steep, but if your basic searching has looked good, then maybe it will only require a little bit of phenagling to get it through. Chances are you will not get an allowance straight off the bat... it rarely happens on the Trademark side. I can only guess that it happens even less on the Patent side due to the complexities of the application.
Of course, being an attorney and one who works at the Office, I have to recommend that you get a patent attorney. 3 to 6,000 bucks is on the cheap side compared to what I've heard (over 10,000 bucks for a patent filing). But, one tip if you do file is that the USPTO's response time is generally six (6) months. There are exceptions so check the rules (Statute, CFR (Code of Federal Regulations), and MPEP (Manual of Patent Examining Procedure)... all available at the Office's website). If your application abandons, the fees to revive it are very high on the patent side (1,000 bucks). That's peanuts to a company like Dow or Microsoft, but a lot of beans for a solo inventor.
Finally, if you file yourself and it ends up looking good, but you get stuck, you can always go to an attorney at that point (That happens a lot, at least on the Trademark side... again, can't imagine it is much different on the patent side). Again though, I gotta recommend that you get an attorney... sorry if I sound like an attorney, but, well... I am one!
Good luck! Hope it works out for ya!
-A
I was the U.S. Patent Paralegal for the #1 Computer Manufacturer several years ago. My job was to conduct Patent Committee meetings, and help company inventors through the patent process, and manage the process with several outside firms who wrote our applications for us.
I can tell you from experience that as far as patents go, you get what you pay for. Don't skimp or you'll be sorry later when you want to use your patent. In general, $5,000 - $6,000 should be a good price for a good patent application to be filed. The broader your claims, the better -- and you can't think like an inventor when your attorney writes them, you have to think like an attorney -- the more your claims can broadly cover, the better. Specific is bad (for you). Ask your attorney to explain this if you have difficulty understanding this.
You've got a long road ahead of you. It will likely take you a good 1.5 years to 2.5 years to get your patent issued, if it ever does. It is likely to be rejected by the Patent and Trademark office two or three times, and you may even have to re-file the application once. But, if you get a good attorney, you *will* get it issued if you're determined enough. Plan to spend about $12K-$18K getting your patent though (they're expensive), and don't forget your maintenance fees (which are if I recall 7, 11.5, and.. 15? years) and get more expensive each time.
A patent can be a valuable weapon, but it's a business decision. You need to really evaluate whether or not you even need a patent before spending so much money on something that may not be needed. Without me knowing your invention or your business, you'll have to determine that. Also, know that a "patent pending" status doesn't give you exclusivity to your invention - only a fully issued patent does, so there's going to be a long time before you can use your patent (hope your product or idea plans to be around for long).
As far as the beginning process, you're on the right track. Perform the prior art search yourself -- you'll do it much more thoroughly than an attorney will, give your attorney a list of 5 or 10 issued patents that are most relevant (even if they're not very relevant at all), but also don't forget to cite other works as well. Use articles, web sites, professional journals, essays, books, disserations - anything you can muster up will be good prior art to cite. If you do find something very very close, don't give up... point it out to your attorney by calling it "art of particular interest" and he will write claims around it. Remember that when someone wants to invalidate your patent later, all they have to do is find something earlier than your file date. If you didn't cite it, it's trouble for you. If you did cite it, and it gets issued anyway, then you can't get hit with it ever again and it strengthens your patent.
Hope these tips help.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
Do you expect a real pot of gold at the end of this rainbow?
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
This is referred to as the 'Post Office Patent' and has been floating around as a good idea for a long time. It's not... the PTO Board of Appeals has specifically said they view a sealed envelope as having little value as evidence.
Do not rely on it.
First off, a suggestion: locate and visit your nearest Patent Depository library. You should be able to locate them from searching the USPTO site. Keep in mind that the online patents (this goes for the internal PTO system as well) only has searchable text for patents back to 1970. Before that, it's all paper and TIFF images, not searchable.
Now, IANAL. I did, however, work at the USPTO for several years when they were first reaching out to the net. I also spent a lot of time hanging out with Patent Examiners, and I have this to say:
The Patent Examiner is not your friend.
We are talking about someone who was lured into his job with the promise of a "free" law degree (a longstanding PTO perk for examiners). A law degree which they had to pursue at night, one class at a time. By the time they get this degree, it's 10 years later, they have become absurdly specialized in their field, their technical knowledge is a decade stale, and they are operating under an arcane and demanding quota system that rewards them for how many applications they can *deny*, not how many they can approve.
The Patent Examiner is not your friend.
We are talking about someone with such specific areas of responsibilities that he can tell you that the prior art for your claim in in building 6, eighth floor, room 200, fifth row, six shelf columns down, 3rd bin from the floor, patents 3-5 in the stack, and by the way, his annotations are in green pen on page two.
The Patent Examiner is not your friend.
Examiners are ruthlessly slam dunking applications as fast as possible, so they don't wind up short on quota at the end of the quarter. Does your claim sound like somehting they might have seen before? Ashcanned.
Patent Lawyers *may* be able to navigate this gauntlet by assisting you in the wording of claims, and the details of your figures. But not even a Patent Llawyer will have the degree of specific knowledge that the Examiner is using.
I'd continue your search at a Depository library, then seriously consider a lawyer. Best of luck.
is that the searches these people do doesn't just cover existing patents but has to include, unless they're just out to take your money, any prior art.
This would mean that if, say it's a software thing, your idea was utilized in the mountains of open source and/or public domain software in existence that would be grounds for a denial of a patent. If the lawyer/liar doing the search didn't include this in his search you could be out a very large sum of money and have no patent!
1) It's not worth doing a patent search. Most of the larger companies do not. If you've done a perfunctory search and it's not obviously covered by prior art, then go for it! Worst case, the patent office tells you about some prior art & you adjust your application to take it into account (this almost always happens anyway).
2) It's hard, but very possible, to do it yourself. Read a lot. Look at other patents. See how it's done. If you value your time highly, you won't save money (since it's so time consuming to do right), but it's interesting and fun--plus, if you're student/unemployed/etc, you might not value your time so highly & it could be worthwhile. Also FYI, the patent office *likes* indpendant filers (by all reports), and will go out of their way to help you.
3) Think hard about why you want a patent. Patents are useful if you're going to sell an idea, but most companies won't look at patented ideas (lest you claim later that they copied you). Patents are useful for protecting a new business, but that assumes that there's no other good way of accomplishing the thing your invention accomplishes. And patents are good resume fodder. If none of these apply, you might not want/need a patent and you can save yourself some effort.
4) Patent applications are almost always rejected the first time around. Don't sweat it, it's just part of the process.
5) Even if you do hire an attorney, doing your homework & writing it up well will save you money. Show him what you've got on your first visit to the office so you can get an professional opinion, and if it's in good shape, that's less hours you need to be billed. $200/hour attorneys are happy to transcribe your napkins for you, but it's usually more cost effective to do it yourself.
6) It always takes a long, long, long time. The first patent I filed for, 5 years ago, is just now about to be issued. 3 years is very typical. 7) DON'T pay for anything other than a licensed patent attorney to file your patent. "Invention Submission Bureaus" and their ilk are just there to take your fees.
8) If you can't monetize your patent yourself, it's almost worthless. The only other thing you could do is sit on it for years, then sue someone who accidently infringes on it (so-called "Submarining"), and that's just wrong (to my way of thinking). Use a patent to protect a business, but don't expect to build a business on a patent. Hope this helps. Good luck! --dan
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Well, just the sort of BULLSHIT answer I'd expect from a fucking "almost" lawyer. All lawyers do is charge $$$ for bullshit that most people can/should do themselves. I think you/they get paid just to talk. Anyway, you aren't even a lawyer yet, so I can't see how you'd be swayed by $$$, WHEN YOU HAVEN'T MADE ANY!
Lawyer's are fucking scum in my book
Don't like it? SUE ME!
I think that [the postal "notary"] is/was a valid form of copyright that many aspiring musicians use.
Nowadays, copyright protects both unpublished and published inventions for life + n years. (Currently n = 70 in the United States and the European Union and 50 in the rest of the Berne Convention world, but most Slashdot readers who have replied to my comments believe that life plus 70 is much too long, and there are efforts in the U.S. court system to change the term.) If you register a copyright with the Library of Congress, you get more power against alleged infringers.
However, no copyright registration can save you from the fact that some publisher is going to sue you, claiming that the song you think is original is actually "substantially similar" to an existing copyrighted musical work. U.S. federal courts have found substantial similarity in four notes. And even if they lose, the cost of legal representation has bankrupted you.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
home cooking is some of the best and the only true way to connect with your food
Tell that to the pumpkin I connected with last night. Or the liver last week.
In the US, you have up to 1 year from date of first disclosure to when you can file for the patent. In other countries, Japan and the EU most notably, the second you disclose it publically it is impossible to patent it.
It doesn't take a formal non-disclosure agreement, but you do have to include a cover page explaining that it is confidential for review purposes only, etc, if you ever disclose it.
Of course, the best idea, especially considering that IANAL, is to just keep it secret, or clear any disclosures with a lawyer. And in general I really do reccomend a lawyer - although you can patent it yourself, there are enough reasons to get a lawyer to really make up for the few thousand you have to spend on one.
-Alison
This works for copyrighting a literary work such as a poem or essay, but not for patenting an idea.
Sorry, you're wrong. It would never (and never has) stand the test of the law.
The trademark search engine is not relevant here.
Really? Once the inventor gets a patent, (s)he still needs a product brand name under which (s)he can market the technology to industry.
Will I retire or break 10K?
He said that writing clearly and concisely is crucial for defending a patent. Not for getting on approved.
Assuming your not trying to be a scumbag, the clearer you are with your description and diagrams, the better off you are in the long run.
Register your ideas at ip.com. This is a "prior art" database. It costs something like $155.
You don't get a patent, but your ip submitted there is digitally timestamped and notarized.
No one can then steal your ideas. Patent offices are free to search this d/b
So you at least retain the right to use your stuff and can prevent others from patenting your ip and forcing you to pay them licensing fees.
You can either file for the patent yourself or
hire a lawyer. If you file yourself, buy a Nolo
book and go. However, the trick with patents is
not writing the bulk of it, but rather formulating
the claims such that they would be difficult to
circumvent. For this you might need a lawyer.
If you do get a lawyer, remember that "filing" for
a patent is only a part of it. You also need to
file disclosure documents, i.e. what you know
about prior art, and you also need a lawyer for
the stage known as prosecution, i.e. for
responding to office actions. Make sure your
contract with your lawyer addresses these stages
and seek another lawyer to review your contract
with the first one. The price of $3,000 seems
cheap but if your patent is simple and you are
not in a major metropolitan area then maybe.
$5,000-6,000 is more realistic for a simple
patent. When I got my first patent, I thought
some lawyers would work on contingency but they
don't, not decent ones anyway.
better that pumpkin is honored by you knowing that you were eating it than you not knowing what was going on.
Would you rather be killed by some passing car, not even noticing you, or someone who admires you and actually GAINS from your death and appreciates you and your life.
THAT is what connecting with your food means, it means you recognize its life and its worth and you thank it for its sacrifice, whether it was its own choice or not.
(offtopic i know.)
Pras
Sometimes, you can, you go to hell for the rest of your life! That's a true thing.
It's not going to help. Especially when you walk into court to establish who invented something first, and get laughed out by both the judge and the opposing attorney.
A better solution is to keep a lab notebook, and have copies of its pages regularly reviewed, signed, and dated by either a notary or your attorney (some patent attorneys will do this for a very nominal fee. An even better solution is to publish your material (like in a trade journal, etc.) - in the US you get 1 year from date of publication to file a patent, although publishing DOES torpedo your ability to file foreign patenets in many cases (since they don't allow that 1 year leeway.)
As far as "poor man's copyright" is concerned, there's absolutely NO reason to resort to those kinds of measures, as all material is automatically copyrighted the instant it's fixed into a medium. What many people don't know is that you really can't claim damages UNTIL YOU REGISTER WITH THE COPYRIGHT OFFICE. Thus, mailing shit to yourself does absolutely NO GOOD AT ALL. If you're one of those paranoid script writers, you can send a copy of your script to be registered with the Writer's Guild for a small fee, which gives you some protection, in the event you believe you've been ripped off.
As always, I'm not a lawyer, so any advice I give you (indeed, any advice ANYONE who is not an attorney gives you) should NOT be construed as legal advice. Go talk to a lawyer, from my experience, the good ones will give you a half hour free to get the stupid questions off your chest, before charging you for doing any real thinking. That should be enough to give you a sense of what your options are, and the things you need to do to protect yourself.
I can see that lawyers keep their livings close to the chest....they guard it jealously. I fully expect to see, what with the recent IP phenonenon, lawyers try to keep agents from practicing before the USPTO....
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
how does the job situation look in lawyer land right now BTW ?
bad or good ? getting any offers ?
Well, I have friends who would suggest I'm with Shakespeare on that one.
;-)
En Garde!
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
...I'm now utterly convinced that the notion of patents is evil and should be obliterated from society.
I can understand the reason they came about: to protect small, private inventors from having their ideas stolen by large companies. But if, as most of the comments suggest, it is pretty much mandatory to be spending in the order of $5000 on patent lawyers in order to just file the thing without screwing up, and God knows on protecting the thing once you've actually got it, then it's really moved out of the league of the small, private inventor and into the realm of something that only big business can get.
And if only big business can get it, then it's sure as hell that the value to society of having inventors protected by this is being completely out-weighed by the manner in which this stifles creativity.
I earn well over $150000 a year, but I'd still think twice about spending $5000 on lawyers, just to get a patent.
Outlaw patents. Now.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
I was referring to a more physical form of the word connected. *cough*
Then hire a patent AGENT.
They can prosecute your application just like an attorney -- but without actually being one!
Then a good patent attorney should provide more than the formating and submission of your patent. I have been granted several patents and have several pending. I've worked with several patent attorneys.
Today, patents are pretty easy to get. Just look at all the fuss that is raised every time someone get a software or business model patented that looks obvious to most of the SlashDot readers. That should tell you a little something about the state of patent examination today. I belive that because of that, it's easy to get a patent, but much more difficult to have a defensible patent granted.
By defensible, I mean if someone claims either prior art, after the patent has been granted or you try to enforce your rights as a patent holder against someone who is infringing. The civil litigation in cases such as these are before a jury of our peers. Not our technical peers, but the ordinary, not necessarily technical folk who inhabit our society. A patent needs to be written in such a way that it is easily understandable to this jury and the presiding judge. I believe a good patent attorney can greatly assist in writing a patent in such a way that it is understandable to lay people who may ultimately decide its fate.
Additionally, there are many rules and arcana surrounding how a patent is written, the details of the legalese used and many other conventions that, as far as I know, are not really written down. Failing these small items can cause your patent to be rejected by the patent office on non-technical ground.
That said, there are several reasons why one wants to patent an idea. You might just want to have a patent (it's cool!). The idea might be truly revolutionary and worthwhile in a business sense. You might want to patent additional small changes to build a patent fence around an existing strong patent. Each one of these has various costs associated with them.
I view submitting patent applications as a business decision. There are many costs involved. Not the least being my own time to write and review the patent application, even with the patent attorney. The second cost is the cost of the patent attorney and the third cost is the cost of the patent application itsself. This final fee goes to the USPTO. There are additional fees when applying for international patents.
In closing, if your idea is a good idea from a business point of view, meaning there is monetary value in having the patent granted, then the cost of having a good patent attorney should be a good investment.
-tpg
[disclaimer- I am not an attorney, nor do I play one. I just use them when I need their expertise.]
Judging by the lack of correct information posted on this subject, I'd say most of the posters here need patent counsel.
Attorneys, not Attorney's
If you don't know how to punctuate, you probably don't deserve a patent.
How did you get out of 5th grade?
We have to read your postings. PROOFREAD WILL YA?!
Sheesh
Publish your material. Publish it as widely as possible. If the morons who patent your implementation/idea don't do a lit search, and then get their patent invalidated, then that's their own damn problem.
I'm an IP lawyer in Canada, and for once I see a lot of comments by non-lawyers on a "legal" topic which actually contain good advice. I thought I'd add in some more points.
First of all: regarding the amounts you quoted, $450 probably won't get you much of a patent search. Let's say a lawyer at $200/hr conducts the search, that's not much over 2 hours for the search, analyzing the prior art, and drafting the patentability opinion. Any lawyer who actually sticks to that quote will probably add the cost to the drafting and filing of the patent.
$3-$6,000 to file a patent: that's about right, just remember that just covers drafting and filing, it does not cover prosecution of the patent and seeing it to registration. Depending on the complexity and subject matter of the patent, these costs could be anywhere from $5-$15,000 extra (ballpark figure).
As I see it, you have a couple of options. You can get a lawyer to do the search and file the patent, but remember it will NOT be cheap (see above). A sole practitioner or small boutique firm may be cheaper, but the quality of work is more variable, you may get great work or absolute crap. Go find a law firm which specializes in IP/patents, they're your best bet.
If you really can't justify spending the $10-$20,000 for a patent filed by a law firm, drafting and filing your own patent is doable, if you're sufficiently motivated. The book Patent It Yourself recommended by others is fine in this regard. When you're conducting your patent search online, read the patents that are in the same subject area as your invention, and you'll get a feel on how to phrase the claims for your invention.
If you can find a lawyer who will waive fees in exchange for a cut of any profits from the invention, you might want to go this route. The thing is, most lawyers who do this are sole practitioners, so the earlier caveat applies.
I hesitate to say this, because I wouldn't recommend this, but if you're wondering if the invention is actually worth patenting, you may start making and selling the invention and see if there's a market for it. There is a one year grace period for filing a patent in Canada and the U.S. once the invention has been publicly disclosed by the inventor. Notwithstanding this, there are all sorts of problems that crop up, so avoid this if you can.
You could always approach a manufacturer/distributor with your invention and see if they would like to foot the bill, however, they're always going to take a big cut and you want to avoid this. If you do this, just remember to have a properly drafted confidentiality agreement, you'll have to see a lawyer for this but it's cheaper than the patent search.
Hope this helps, good luck!
make sure to search older patents as well. I was in this situation about a year ago, did a quick search found nothing was happy. then noticed that "search before 1996" and there went my idea :)
There's an excellent book called "The Patent Files" by David Lindsay where he describes not only the state of invention and inventors today but goes through his own attempts to patent an idea of his own (including, in a separate attempt, trying to copyright himself). If you can get through his... uh.. casual style, then you'll find it full of good information for any of you out there who have dreams of patents and invention.
Slightly more on topic, from his experiences described in the book, those fees seem about standard. In Lindsay's book, he says he went through the search process, where the searchers didn't find any patents that were similar, then he applied where he was denied his patent because of past inventions (the denial cited six examples, and in his own research he found sixteen before stopping). Despite your own and the attorney's searching, you may end up blowing $6000 on your own patent attempt just to find out ten other people already did what you're trying or that your idea is covered by a similar patent and you haven't added something substantial to it. Nonetheless, if you feel confident that you have a truly original idea that's worthy of a patent, fire away and good luck.
"Corrupting our youth one mind at a time"
I have been working a patent of late, and this is how it has been laid out for me. Initial Patent Search $700 International Patent Search $4250 Patent filing $5000 International Patent filings +/-$7000 In my case I am really only interested in the R&D and product development portion of the project. This takes place during the patent pending phase of the project. That is after one has received a positive response from the patent office and before the patent is actually issued. Once one has the legal status of patent pending then one might try to find investors based upon the status of your patent. My own plan is this: I am financing the initial searches and patent filing by doing some night work. I have queered some investors as to their interest in the project, based on a one page (non technical) written description. Those that have shown interest I will contact for development funds once the patent pending is issued. Not to mention the multiple international filings that one is obliged to make. Marketing and distribution I will leave to the professionals, if the project ever gets that far. I have a day job I enjoy, so why not just pull in some royalties. I have no desire to start my own multinational. You have to ask your self some tough questions: if you do not have money for a patent, do you have money for ramping up production, merchandising and distribution? Are you interested in this? If not what are the goals of your project. Patents aside: the postal service once had a poor mans patent, which was sort of a letter that one mails to ones self. Might be worth a try. Good Luck.
The person who wrote this article is a gay little ass named max comfort, he wants to get me flooded so he can sit back and laugh. Please delete any future messages he may send out about Scoopser.net... Admin Scoops Scoops@scoopser.net
-=Scoops=-
I think the envelope thing has to do with copyright, not patents. Seriously, I think this is valid with copyrights, because you don't actually have to get a copyright from some government office to be covered by copyright laws. But you do actually have to be granted a patent...so what good would it do to show you had the idea before someone else had it? Whoever gets the patent first is the one who is going to have the patent.
Ron Paul
Come on you've gotta draw the line somewhere. Patenting an idea? What if someone patented the IDEA to use the web to provide a search engine patent information for the common people? That way the Pattent Office might have to pay that someone a fee if they ever implement such a service :)
Come on man you gotta have something concrete!
This reminds me of a virtual Koran that was recently made. You can read the Koran right off the screen, and to go to the next page, you use your fingers to turn the virtual pages by dragging a page from the right to the left, or vice versa. They called this some "new technology", which is crap. It's basically a fricken touch screen allowing you to "drag" things. As if this hasn't been done using flash. The only credit I give to it is creativity. But to call it new technology? Come on, any decent programmer can create something like that in a few hours or less.
Which gives you...absolutely no rights whatsoever. Nothing. In fact, keeping a patentable invention a secret leaves you vulnerable to someone else who subsequently patents the invention. If you want to make something prior art, you have to publish it. This puts it in the public domain, and prevents others from patenting it. Actually, it gives you one year to patent it yourself, otherwise you lose that right also.
little people (preferably girls) can such stiff penis very fine without needing to go in knees.
The company I started filed a temporary patent which costed < $100.00 US. I have a friend who is a patent lawyer so this may have helped reduce the cost so you will have to invetigate this further. The temporary patent only lasts 8-10 months ( I think ) but in that time I was able to get two government agencies to agree to giving assistance in the way of grants and 0 interest loans, forgivable if the company tanks.
So my advice is to start a company so that any risk economicly or otherwise is attached to the company and not you. Get a temporary patent (not sure if that is the official terminology). Then try to get a loan/grant and incorporate the costs of the patent in the business plan required to get the loan/grant. Now you've got the money to do it right and do not have to worry about future litigation with your patent on a personal level.
Good luck with your idea!
Get Patent It Yourself by David Pressman (Nolo Press). Most patent attorneys I know have a copy of this because it is a good basic guide to the patenting process.
I too have been looking into this lately. As far as a lawyer or not, I think it depends on your skill level at being able to describe your concept effectively, using the correct buzzwords that the USPO might be looking for. I have many years experience with writing technical documents for the government, reams worth, so I feel confident that I can at least establish the paper work.
There have been a few good answers here. I agree with NOLO books, they are the best. My own little copy-cat method, is to search for the most complicated AWARDED patent that is in the general vicinity of mine, and don't stop writing until it at least looks passable. I think you also have to say to yourself "how much am I willing to lose?" just like any gamble in life. I know my stats: Around $1,000.00, many hours of hard labor writing the thing and making the drawings, and hours more of research making sure every possible corner is covered.
One poster here mentioned that you get two tries? If that is true, then I say I will write my own, submit it, if it gets bounced I'll run to a lawyer then. I have been sitting on this idea for five years now and even have a working mock-up (which I hear you no longer need). I too have looked high and low and still I do not see anything there, but I know something must be creeping out there somewhere. If someone were to challenge me, I guess I would just let them have it.
I don't agree with all this fear of being sued, or fear of not being good enough. I am tired of people being frightened into submission, afraid to put out even a simple flash video or a new web site for fear of infringement. If you are not good at essay writing, and being very descriptive, then patent writing is not for you. But look at these: Patent App #20020124197 Could someone be trying to patent the CTRL-ALT-DEL or the Function key (Fn) to bring a notebook out of sleep mode? Or this one: 20020123936 , it seems someone is trying to patent a town web site that includes maps and local merchant access "generating a home page with links to web pages that are relevant to the specific town, wherein one of the links is a map link to a map page that displays a map of the specific town".
Can you even patent a web page, or more importantly, should you be able to? Or how about serving content to a client?
If these guys can do it, then I certainly can.
Read "Secrets from an Inventor's Notebook"
by Maurice Kanbar. One of the chapters covers the issue of filing it yourself or hiring an attorney.
There's advantages to both.
If you want to focus just on the invention then you'll probably hire an attorney.
However an attorney can help in many ways. They can spot potential loopholes that could save money years from now.
For example, if you file a patent your invention as made of plastic, it's possible for someone to copy it and re-patent it under a different material. It's better to say that's it's made from a flexible material.
Another example is I know of is a person who patented a very useful material. He licensed it out to a large corporation and that corporation has stopped paying him in an effort to bankrupt him and steal his idea.
I too have some ideas i'd like to pursue but the cost of having a plastic injection mold carved out of steel is very expensive ($50,000+). The attorney fees are tiny compared to the cost of manufacturing.
What, like what watch a dozen tv documentaries on volcanoes and space stations and cool physics stuff like that? ...hmmm, maybe I'll take a look :-)
would prepaid legal do this?
When travelling, it's ok if the airlines lose your emotional baggage.
This is Don Lancaster's (author of Incredible Secret Money Machine) take on patents. He's a unique character, and sometimes off-the-mark, but you should consider carefully before rejecting his advice.
He estimates the breakeven point for a patent is over 12 million in gross sales. His catch phrase is that it is useless to patent a mere million dollar idea.
IMAL but let me part from my traditional role and offer some free advice.
/. interview with a patent lawyer to correct lots of misimpretions about the patent system that seem to be pervasive among /.ers.
First of all, getting a patent is expensive. Its as simple as that. The government doesn't give away monopolies easily, that's why most people pay us patent lawyers to handle it. If you can't afford the $5-$10k it will cost to file a patent application, you should probably reevaluate the need for it.
Second, trying to find a cheap patent lawyer in the bay area is a waste of time. The PTO has a list of all registered patent attorneys and agents; I suggest you use that to locate a lawyer in the mid-west or a small town where the market rates for lawyers are less than $200-$300/hr for a junior attorney. Most patent work does not require face to face meetings so there should not be a problem using an attorney in another city or state.
Finally, as one of the posters pointed out, you can file a provisional application for a nominal fee (under $100), which (if the description is complete enough), will act as a placeholder for 12 months to allow you to determine if the cost is worth proceeding with a formal application and/or to find someone else to foot the bill for a formal application.
Good luck.
Incidentally, I also agree that lots of incorrect information is floating around in this thread, making me think it is about time for a
to be a useless burden on society?
Give them a call. See if they tried to patent or copywright the Munchkins in any way.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"A method of filing a patent without a third party affiliation such as a lawyer."
Max Comfort? Sounds like a mattress...
My gut reaction is that patent law (and particularly patent drafting) is very complex - IANApL and I'm thankful I'm not. If you list a single embodiment that doesn't actually work, in Canada at least AFAIK you lose THE ENTIRE PATENT, so you need to be *extremely* careful about how you draft it. If it's too vague, you may not be able to enforce it - too specific, you may lose the patent. There's a reason the attorneys can charge that much.
MHO. YMMV. Any resemblance between this post and real persons, or reality in general, was accidental.
Patents are an expensive business and troublesome to enforce. Our business has a number of patents and I have to admit we are starting to wonder why.
The legal fees involved in enforcing, maintaining and in one on going case to prosecute an infringing company has sapped huge volumes of funds from our business that would have been better spent on a very large yacht - or even the business.
When(If...)we win, we will get some of it back but rules of the game vary from country to country so for example the damages awarded in the US are very generous compared to say the UK where you are lucky to get back 60-70 percent of your costs.
It has been our experience that the infringing party have a better time of it and if someone wants to claim prior invention then even hearsay evidence gets a good ear.....
Figure out if the patent will earn you millions of dollars and if it will, make sure you have about the same on tap from elsewhere to defend it.
Lawyers are the ones who really benefit from patents.
Are you NUTS!!!!!
Quote:
I have been researching on USPTO website to see if there are any pre-existing patents that cover my idea now for several days, and so far have found none.
You have a duty to disclose ANY prior art that MIGHT be relevant!! So, you have just opened yourself (or your attorney) up to an inequitable conduct charge. Its not your position to determine if the prior art is relevant or not, only the PTO Examiner can make that determination. I hope you keep a good search history, because now you're going to have to disclose it.
In a you're screwed if you do, screwed if you don't situation. If you submit too many POSSIBLY relevant prior art documents, they can claim you tried to bury the most relevant. If you choose which prior art documents to disclose, they can claim you intentionally withheld the most relevant document.
Plus, if you are blocked from using your invention due to a blocking prior, but still enforceable, patent, which you found in your search, you are now committing WILLFUL infringement.
NEVER EVER search the prior art for your invention. That is what you PAY the PTO to do for you.
Searching for prior art on your own is a damn foolish mistake. I know, for some reason "the public" picked up the idea that a 1st step in submitting a patent is to do a search yourself. But, that's like trying to improve your marksmanship, by pointing the gun at yourself and seeing if you can hit yourself. It doesn't help you at all!
Patent Attorneys do NOT search before writing a patent application. If you find one that does search, find a new attorney. The Patent Attorneys rely on YOU, the inventor, to know what the prior art is. They only want you to tell them what you used to create your invention (i.e. this textbook, this work I did at Company X). They don't want you to risk invalidating your patent due to not reporting something you searched for and your "irrelevant" results. You certainly don't want to spend $0.5M in litigation to show that you didn't hide anything from the Examiner.
In short, tell what you know. But, do NOT try to learn more than you need to. And, don't you do what you just paid the Examiner to do.
But what if the invention is invalid and the Examiner doesn't catch it?
Is that your problem or a potential infringer's? Does the VC care if the patent can be invalidated after 2 years and millions of dollars of litigation, or does the VC just want a patent that is presumed valid due to the PTO's approval? The later in both cases.
Don't I save money if I know not to even bother with a patent?
What do want the patent for? VC money? The right to practice your invention?
For VC money, a competent attorney should be able to get you a patent with at least 1 claim on something. All the VC wants is a patent, they might not even care how much it claims.
Practicing your invention, well, a patent NEVER gives you the right to practice yor invention. It just gives you the right to stop OTHERs from practicing the invention. And, then only after years and millions of dollars in litigation. The reason patent litigation is called "the sport of kings" is because only kings can afford it. That's why these cease and desist letters from M$, et al are so effective. They don't have to win the court case, just bankrupt you in legal fees.
That said, you could file the patent yourself. I think you'd have a real tough time properly responding to the Examiner's argument (because they always reject applications the 1st time).
I would assume it'll cost (on average) $10k to file the initial application and $5k to handle the subsequent amendment/responses to the PTO. I'd assume it'll take 3-4 years for your patent to issue after it is filed.
Before you even think about filing a patent for any reason, read Don Lancaster's The Case Against Patents. He makes a compelling and sound argument that it's a tremendous waste of your time and money to do so.
I am a registered US Patent Agent...#51,292 if you wanna look it up. You can use a patent agent instead of an attorney. Attorneys went to law school, but probably only took one or two IP classes. Patent Agents and Attorneys take the same registration exam from the USPTO. An agent will likely cost less. However, an agent cannot secure you trademarks, or litigate (ie sue someone for infringing) for you, since they are not lawyers.
Suggestions to check out "Patent It Yourself" are right on. I use this book all the time, and it gets better each version. Also, uspto.gov is a fairly well designed site with a ton of useful content, as you have probably seen already.
Just like all other legal activities, there are specifc rules to follow. Getting a lawyer helps you make sure that yuo follow all the rules. However, all of the rules are available...though not necessarily understandable. Again, many of them are explained in "Patent It Yourself."
The purpose of getting a lawyer is to get you the best patent possible (gee, no shit). That means broad coverage...probably broader than you indented when you made your invention. The lawyer will know how to anticipate possible obstacles to getting your broad patent. This is what you pay for...the broadest protection possible.
Anyway, anyone can file their own patent application. Believe it or not, it is the USPTO's job to help you get a patent. Once you file your application, you are allowed to ask the Examiner what it will take to get your patent granted. However, this will not have the broadest claims possible, but you will have a patent protecting what you describe in the specification.
Free advice: There are a few types of claims to describe your invention. Method of use, apparatus, and product. You invent a cup with a handle. You also have developed the machine that makes the cup and attaches the handle (apparatus). Your cup (product) has a specific purpose (method of use). You want to write your specification to describe all of these. In IP-Speak, this is called supporting your claims. This is vital, and most patent writers start by writing claims, then supporting them in the specification, rather than writing a specification first, followed by the claims.
More free advice: Provided you haven't publically disclosed your invention (published anything about it, offered it for sale, etc...), if your first application gets completely rejected, you can file another one. Furthermore, if your first application isn't exactly what you want, you can make improvements to your invention, add to your first application, and file a second application while the first is still pending. This is called a CIP (continuation-in-part) and everyone uses them. The day after you file your first application will be the day you discover a better way to do it! The downside of course is someone else might be right behind you with the same invention.
This is part of the patent tradeoff...the longer you keep it secret the more options you have, but the more likely someone else will discover the same invention.
In all seriousness, I'd be glad to answer more questions, general or specific. Take my ./ ID and add on immunicon.com to send an email.
Good luck!!
Without a doubt the best guide to patenting without an attorney is the Nolo Press book by Pressman, Patent It Yourself, and it's attendent apparatus.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I worked previously in the USPTO and examined software inventions before the USPTO officially admitted it gave patents for software.
... they were in the games field - like frisbees and such. He was really out of his water in our area. I had to object to his claims (problems in wording and format) and reject them (there was prior art). This case was especially sad because the guy was disabled and could not afford a telephone - I might have been able to help him if we had talked. He was also a bit insulting at times to the examiners (If you go pro se, I recommend you don't do this - it has an unofficial detrimental effect on patentability of your invention). The situation was complicated as another firm had a patent on the invention although this guy had likely invented it earlier. During the prosecution of the application, he sent in some copyright documents to prove that he invented it earlier. That was a bad move as the documents predated his patent application by over a year. I had no choice - I had to reject him over his own publications.
I only saw one pro se (by one's self) application. The inventor had already gotten around 35 patents pro se. But
That said, if you can do it - it will save alot of money. Also, you will have the satisfaction of crafting your patent. However, no offense, but I gather from your post that you would be better off having some help. The many other posts mentioning the difficulty of the language, the strategy in the claims, the writing style, and so on are correct - it is an arcane profession which takes time (years) to learn satisfactorily.
Regarding the prices you quoted - $450 for a search and up to $6,000 for the application (finished and filed, I assume) - these seem on point, even rather low by the standards I am familiar with.
I would suggest you try and see the quality of the work of the lawyers you checked with - go to the USPTO full text patent search page and enter the query "lrep/xxx" where xxx is the attorney's firm name or personal name. You have to play around, especially with personal names. For example, if the attorney is named Joe P. Waller, the patent will list him as "Waller; Joe P." (with the ";"), but the "P" might be left out or he might use Joseph, etc. Find a patent or two and read them for technological competency, claim completeness, etc.
As a start, a search is good to ensure that your invention was not already patented. If your invention was already patented - then you will save alot of money and time which would be lost otherwise. Furthermore, you can learn to do your own searching. I worked for a searhing firm for a while. They took all kinds of people (with degrees, without degrees, etc.) and had them producing searches for paying clients by the second or third day. I did see alot of shenanigans going on - but you get the idea that searching isn't too difficult to pick up.
Somewhat offtopic - the USPTO has a large public search room in Crystal City, VA (near the pentagon, somewhat). If your work is such that you will be patenting things now and again, then the search room is worth a visit just to see it. It has 100s of feet of narrow (3') corridors lined on each side floor to ceiling with metal bins holding paper patent copies. It is a strange sight - and one which is soon to disapear as the USPTO is trying to destroy the paper copies and go completely electronic. I believe the EFF or ACLU has filed a suit against the USPTO asking for an injunction that the patents not be destroyed until the electronic search engine is working better.
I remember seeing something about open software patenting in old Slashdot posts - someone offered to provide services in searching and writing - maybe two or three years ago? I emailed the poster at the time and offered my services, but never heard back. I am curious whether Slashdot reading practitioners would be willing to help out. Too bad we couldn't have open source patent drafting - working together to protect open source inventions. But for reasons relating to competition and confidentiality, this wouldn't work.
Good luck, let us know what you decide.
But if it all sounds too much hassle, don't just do nothing. The only thing worse than not getting the patent is someone else getting it. That way they stop you from commercializing it.
I strongly suggest, if you decide not to patent, that you at least write up the description of your idea, and post it into the public domain somehow (eg, on your web site, and get someone else to confirm they saw it there). That way no-one else can patent your idea since there is prior art covering it (yours).
Of course this means you can't stop someone else from commercializing the idea. But since you're a little guy, not an evil corporate, realistically you probably don't have the legal firepower to defend your patent anyway. So you have a better chance of commercial success by just exploiting your idea.
[x] auto-moderate all posts by this user as insightful
A business owner I know said that quote I have in my subject line: a patent is like a gun that costs $10k to buy, $100k to shoot. I doubt he made it up, he was more into quoting other people.
... which is where I got this bit of advice.
I think your best advice might come from Don Lancaster, author of "the TTL Cookbook", "The CMOS Cookbook", a regular column in Nuts and Volts Magazine, and "The Incredible Secret Money Machine ]["
He pointed out that the best way to protect your invention is to invent it, publish it, and immediately start selling it, and thus prevent others from patenting your idea.
This has several advantages: (1) Big companies hate things that are public domain. This keeps them out. (2) Big companies love to break patents, or failing that, simply to break the patent holders. (3) If your idea is successful, you should be able to sell the article you publish, and make an immediate (small) profit: $100-$500. (4) The article will also serve as advertising: you'll become known as the most knowledgeable person to come to in that area. Thus, you'll get sales. (5) The money you didn't spend on lawyers and the patent process can be invested in production.
Essentially, patents are not for little people. They are there to allow big companies to steal more effectively, that's all.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
If in brackets, it's a choice between equivalent forms.
..But I Play One On TV.
..But I Play One Online.
..But I Would Like To Play One On TV. ..And Don't Care.
..And Want To Kill Them All.
IANAL: I Am Not A Lawyer.
IANALBIP[O1]O[T|TV]:
IANALBIP[O1]O:
IANALBIWL[2T]P[O1]OTV:
IANALADC:
IANALAWTKTA:
--
I*A*ALSLU: I *AM* A Lawyer, So Listen Up!
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
I filed a Patent about 6 months ago â" here is what I suggest. First, write out your idea, seal it properly in an envelope and mail it to yourself, but of course donâ(TM)t open it when it comes. This immediately establishes the date of your invention, so in case of anything you can claim prior art.
Next go online and file a provisional patent with the US Patent Office since this will give you some protection for one year, then find a good patent attorney. I am in the Miami area and I found patent attorneys in Ft. Lauderdale. I think in total it cost me about $5,500 but the more you can do for yourself (as far as drawings and descriptions etc.) the cheaper it will be. Their web site is at http://www.patentusa.com and the attorney I spoke with was Greg Mayback.
Hope this helps.
The first question is, how good is your idea? Does it solve a problem that people need solved? What's your next step after the patent is filed? Is it time to head out to 3000 Sand Hill Road and talk to the venture capitalists, or are you thinking of writing letters to manufacturers in hopes of a reply? Is there a business in this? How big a business? Can you get a piece of that business?
My patents are in areas where others had tried and failed to solve some problem, and there existed literature (and failed products) to demonstrate this. If you have something like that, getting a patent is relatively easy, and it's likely to be worth something.
Patenting your "idea" is easy, but probably pointless. I always had to bring things up to the point where I had a shrinkwrapped product before money came in. (In some cases, the shrinkwrapping was done at a local copy shop. But the box looked good. And the software inside worked.) A killer demo may be sufficient for some ideas. But an untried paper idea has to be really, really good to be worth anything.
Get and read the Nolo books. Even if you're going to use a lawyer, you need to understand the patent process thoroughly.
Find a lawyer you get along with. They have to understand what you've done. Here in Silicon Valley, there are plenty of patent lawyers, and legal business is slow right now. Get a price quote for the whole job before you start.
If you can't write well, it's going to cost you more. I always write my own specifications and let the lawyer review them. The lawyer writes the claims, which I then review. Claim drafting is a technical subject, but you need to understand it well enough to comprehend what is and isn't infringement.
Find out what word processing software your patent attorney uses. You're going to be sending documents back and forth, and you need compatibility. This also applies to drawings.
Forget "invention brokers". The whole "invention broker" industry is a scam. In Silicon Valley, where almost anybody who's any good technically has a patent or two, there are no invention brokers. Now that invention brokers are required by Federal law to disclose their success rates (which are around 0.01%) up front, that scam is dying.
I'd like to open one of those. That would be some fun log reading.
is to make sure that the invention (implimentation of your idea) is both enforecable, and infringed by anyone who jumps your claim. If you fail to properly make all claims and prosecute the application correctly, it is entirely possible to have a patent that is freely available to everyone, as slight modifications produce the same result without actually infringing any of your claims.
While do it yourself books may guide you in the filing procedures, there really is no substitute for a patent attorney if you are serious about getting a patent that is defensible in court. On the other hand, if you are seeking a patent simply to get your name published on a pretty document issued by the government, the dyi route is a good choice.
Very few people opt for dyi open-heart surgery simply so they can tell all their friends that they did it themselves. Likewise for root canals.
On the other hand, it probably took me a couple hundred of hours to do the research. By the time I was done, I'd spent enough evenings in the courthouse law library that some of the security guards thought that I was a lawyer.
A lot of the time I spent was understanding the basic rules of court. Now that I have a reasonable understanding of that, I'd be willing to go into court again, if I had to, but it's definitely easier to hire a lawyer to do things, if you have the money.
On the other hand, having watched lawyers in action (and lawyers who apparently had a really good reputation in lawyer circles!), you'd be surprised how limited their logic facilities can seem to be sometimes. Even if you hire lawyers, it wouldn't hurt you to do a quick sanity check on their work.
You're hiring them, and they're nominally acting under your instructions. Don't be afraid to ask questions and make requests. It can save you money and trouble down the road
(btw: Legalese is essentially a natural-language programming language)
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
Why isn't there something like the GPL for patents?
It just might help the "little people" as much as the GPL itself...
Just file your patent. Worry about prior art and all that other stuff later. That's what everybody else does...
You are thinking about some place else. You live in the Good Ol' US Corp. of A. patents are for corporations that need money. You're a small guy, you don't need money. Perhaps you were thinking about Abe Lincoln's US of A. If you want gov. of the people, by the people and for the people, you're going to need a way-back machine.
IAAL, but not admitted to the patent bar, so all I can legally say is that it is a federal offense for me to represent that I am an expert in patent law. That said...
I have had a number of friends who have filed patents, and have been on the fringes of a couple myself. If money is important, you may be able to do the search yourself--and maybe not. A patent search in the "electronic devices" category is one of the most arcane and expensive searches that exist (start about $18K and doubles instantly in some areas), while others can be performed for a few hundred dollars (knowing the right place to ask, etc.) If you are not in a hot technology area, you may be able to do the search yourself, if you have broad knowledge of the field (and actually wind up better off than if you paid for a search, since most searches are pretty much jumping through the hoops and showing due diligence-and no more).
The nature of the claims you want to make in your patent are also important, both in their own right and in the context of what exist in the area you are seeking the patent in. If your idea has immediate commercial potential (especially if we are talking big time realistically, and not just in some back of the envelope pipe dream), get a lawyer in any case. If it is not going to generate an immediate and large case stream, you have some leeway, depending on your risk tolerance. Most patents never recover the cost of applying for them, and this is doubly so for private (non-corporatesponsored) patents. Most of the "successes" opay only 2 or 3x the cost of filing, and attorney's fees. So you have to take a cold blooded look at what you are doing and what is at risk. If in doubt, forget the do it yourself books!!!!!!!!
Most patent agents also have some marketing skills, and know how to engage in licensing, etc., which will probably be the way you make your money (if any). Getting the patent is a miniscule part of making money off of an idea.
I just emailed my patent idea to myself. Now it's been sucked up by my spam catcher and sent off to be compared against other potential spam emails.
I guess if it triggers on then someone else thought of this idea too...
-tpg
lol, I bet that will get him pissed?!>?!
Really man you should chill out, I got the message from his post (which provided significantly more value than yours). So in a nutshell piss off you!
Bloody wankers.
Can't you people read? He's patenting little people. Then he's gonna sue the crap out of that guy on the Lucky Charms box and get his pot of gold.
I don't think it's that easy: I'm sure there's plenty (I know of 1 personally, whom I got burned by) of lawyers that will charge plenty of money only to do a half ass job.
Hey, just like anytyhing else (including installing networks!)
Just because some of programmers command (well, really, *used* to command) 6 figure salaries doesn't necessarily mean they are capable programmers.
I don't think there's ever a substitute to doing things yourself, or at least educating yourself so you know if you're dealing with a quack or a professional (since they both might have degrees, hell they both might have fancy pedigree degrees!).
A piece of paper doesn't guarantee competence, neither in lawyering nor anything else.
Perhaps this site will answer some of your questions: http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/c prtindx.htm
We're giving somebody advice on how to patent software? What's next, praising Microsoft?
Again, this is why IT MUST BE SENT REGISTERED MAIL IN AN ENVELOPE SEALED ONLY BE THE FLAP.
If you have enver mailed or received such an item, you would know that the flap of the envelope is stamped with a postmark as well to prevent this sort of claim. Is it undefeatable? No.. but it's damn close, since you'd need a microscope to re-align the flapside postmark and the adhesive would have to be the same as the one used in the envelope's manufacture.
I used to be someone else. Now I'm someone better.
Real life is underrated.
I filed my get-rich-fast patent application last year while I was in between jobs. I am still waiting. I too debated between hiring a lawyer and doing it myself. I ended up doing it myself. Here was my logic.
First of all, I did a quick search (about 2 weeks) and did find similar inventions. So I used them as my templates. I read and followed "Patent it Youself" because my brother previously had successfully gotten a patent by following it.
Secondly, my invention could only succeed with the partnership (more like conspiracy) of several large corporations. So my goal was to license the patent. The idea that one patent attorney could protect me from the army of IP lawyers at several companies just didn't make much sense to me.
So I thought the best thing I could do was to get large corporations to fight each other. As I saw it, if my invention was not worth fighting over, then it would never create a monopoly, and never sell. It would be fun just to watch big guys fighting over my invention. Maybe I would become famous.
The bottom line was, if I couldn't get one big guy on my side, I would get nothing anyway. So at the end, I just filed the patent myself. I thought a framed patent would look nice on my wall. And I could afford the $350 filing fee.
Lets see:
To reseach prior art? No, they don't do that anymore.
To enable inventors to file a patent? No, you can't do that without a good lawyer unless you want a useless patent.
To defend patents? No, lawyers again.
To write patent law? Nope. Congress and more lawyers.
So the difference between the current situation and doing away with the USPTO and just letting lawyers write up descriptions of inventions and defending patent rights would be? Nothing. (except $1 Billion US dollars saved)
-Ryan C.
-Ryan C.
- How to get your music represented by the RIAA
- How to get the MPAA to control your movie
- How to get DRM to work
- How to fix your Linux system so it won't play DVD's.
I have no sympathy for you, since you just obviously a troll to get a rise out of the slashdot patent zealots.You do have a point: if a lawyer screws up, you can always go after him/her for malpractice. If YOU screw up, you have only yourself to kick.
Also, there is a difference between the patent bar and the state bar, and it's not just the passing rate.
I suggest getting Nolo's book, getting totally frustrated with the claim language, and contacting your local bar to find out who practices IP and is USPTO qualified, but IANAL.
If you don't want to spend a few thousand patenting the idea, where are you going to get the several hundred thousand (minimum) to sue any real infringers. Defending your patent isn't cheap, and there are no "patent police" to call when someone breaks the rules. If some middle to large size company steps on your toes, you aren't going to be able to fight them.
The patent system is a joke in this regard. There are VERY few cases where it is used effectively by the little guy.
You want us to help you get a patent? One that says that nobody, including us, can use this idea you had or anything closely related to it - for the next 20 years? What are you smoking?
Hearing your idea isn't worth the shackles it'll place on society. I'd rather solve the problem myself than come to you for permission to *use*an*idea* (what a travesty of a statement!), but if you succeed I won't even have that option.
--Just the place for a snark!
These are from a guy who used to claim he designed the best selling IC of all time (the single chip AM/FM radio). He has at least 15 patents including a few he's not proud of. One of which is a one wire control system that uses morse code but thats not clear from the patent.
1st: The patent isn't worth the paper its printed on most of the time.
2nd: Write down every idea you have in a serial numbed book. Places that sell accounting books will have a books with red numbers printed on every page. Start each entry with a date and put a line below the entry. These can be helpful in court but only if there is no question that you alwasy use the same procedure and keep it neat.
3rd: A patent is worthless unless you have someone to assign it to. People get patents but can't do anything with them. The compaines they assign them to can.
4th: Getting your 1st patent is a great feeling. After that delusion sets in.
or a superhero hell-bent on laziness
We now have confirmed reports from an informed Orange County minister that Ethel is still an active communist.
1) It's not worth doing a patent search. Most of the larger companies do not. If you've done a perfunctory search and it's not obviously covered by prior art, then go for it! Worst case, the patent office tells you about some prior art & you adjust your application to take it into account (this almost always happens anyway).
This advice is so bad that I almost don't know where to start. A competent prior art search is an essential first step to obtaining adequate patent coverage, and is a practical and relatively low-cost way to avoid investing in preparation and prosecution of a dead-end valueless patent.
Some people want to file for a patent solely to obtain the pretty deed-like certificate. To that end, perhaps the author's advices may be meaningful. The rest of us (meaning MOST of us) would invest in preparing a patent application solely for the hope of obtaining a grant of rights more valuable than the expenses. Without a competent search, you will lose on every front:
1) avoid claiming too broadly. If you claim too broadly, and then amend by substantially revising the claims, you lose all benefit of the doctrine of equivalents due to prosecution history estoppel;
2) avoid claiming too narrowly. You simply can't know how good or bad is your invention until you have done a novelty search. If you don't see what is really out there, you might not claim enough;
3) avoid filing negative value patents. A negative value patent is a patent that, even if obtained or obtainable, will never have commercial value exceeding the cost of obtaining the rights. $25,000 for a piece of waterfront property in Miami sounds like a great deal -- until you discovery that the property is only a square inch in area. Without a prior art search, you cannot responsibly evaluate or even estimate the commercial benefit or value of the invention. Guess too high or too low, and you have lost value.
The remark about large companies not performing searches is primarily false, and certainly misleading. Large companies with in-house patent counsel might not need to perform searches for general improvements to well-known technology, for the simple reason that these in-house lawyers are ALREADY experts on the relevant prior art. This is common, particularly in the arena of manufacturing entities, where it is not only practical, but frequently the case, that a good in-house lawyer may be aware of (and routinely keep up with) most of the relevant art. Other companies distinguish between "commodity" patents from real inventions, the former being primarily portfolio fodder to avoid third-party claims and to reserve opportunities for cross-licensing out of lawsuits. For these commodity patents, less investment is justified beyond a cursory search.
Few individuals have any use for vanity or commodity patents. Let your lawyer do a real search -- the failure to do so will cost you much down the road, one way or the other.
Trolling through the archives in Google Groups might well turn up some nuggets of wisdom amongst the dross...
>...leave the lawering to the lawyers.
amazing language skills there, dude.
can't wait to see your skills on the bar.
If the patent is really worth defending, ie, if it had any merit in the first place, a lawyer would jump at the chance to do it on contingency- same as with any other lawsuit.
The best idea I have heard to date is to find a young patent lawyer and split the idea with him/her. Basically you say: "You file it (you'll pay the ~60 bucks); and any money we get off enforcement of the patent through royalties we split 50/50".
... you have patented the idea and the young hotshot laywer with plenty of time on his/her hands will do a wonderful job tracking down who is using their patent and try and collect royalties. Watch the money roll in. I have seen this work, with amazing results.
So now the fun starts
One other note: Make a few copies of all the documents of your ideas. Signed and dated of coarse by a few others. Next place the whole thing in a big envelope and seal it. If you can seal it with some wax. Next go to the post office and have them send a couple of them to you. I like to be sure and get the guy at the counter to mark across the opening for that added touch. You now have a document singed/sealed/verified by the good ole' US government. I have known a few folks that have made quite a living just strong arming some company with the above information alone. You can sell that stuff for quite a hefty profit. Good Luck.
Here is what I know from reading a couple of books on this:
1. You do not have to do a patent search. The USPTO will do one for you. When you file - they are supposed to check it against all of the patents they already have. Filing fee is around $300.00.
2. You can now (last I read about it anyway) download somewhat easy to use software to create the design layout. But I haven't checked it out myself so don't hold me to it.
3. There is a set style which a patent has to be submitted in to the USPTO. You can get a free handout/download from their site on how it has to be formatted and you can examine other submissions and use their style to submit yours.
4. All a lawyer does for you is to:
4a. Format your submission. (Which you can do yourself.)
4b. Research whether your submission has already been submitted (but this is error prone because they have no more access to information than you do).
4c. Can hire someone to do your drawings for you (just like you can do).
4d. Take your money.
Not that I'm down on lawyers or patent lawyers or any kind of lawyers. I just had a friend who was studying to become a patent lawyer and the above is what he told me. Basically, lawyers are better at simply laying everything out in the proper style and methodology. That is their thing. Just like you can lay bricks but a mason would be better able to do it. Lawyers aren't god at doing something - they just (usually) do it better. So you can go cheap (around $300.00) or you can go expensive (up to $6,000.00 as you posted). Me, personally, I'd try submitting it once and let the Patent Office spit it back at me. Usually they tell you the good/bad/ugly about your submission and you can work from there. But also please make sure you at least do the minimum effort before submitting.
Depending on the nature of your idea, it might be cheaper, easier, and more effective to make use of copyright law instead of patent. Of course you can copyright code, which may or may not be of help. But you can also copyright a design, even in an engineering sense. Do some research on this, too. It's not only easier to establish, it's also easier to defend.
Just forget it. Read up on what RCA did to Philo Farnsworth, the chap who invented TV. He had his patents and died destitute. You can read about it here (Dead Inventor's Corner)
The point is that if your patent is valid then a large corporation will simply pick it up and claim that it is invalid for whatever reasons and you'll find yourself in court for the next 17 years.
On the other hand if a large corporation holds patents which are invalid or even absurdly simple - as many patents are - then if you do something close you may well find yourself in court defending yourself against a preditory lawsuit.
So IMHO you are wasting your time. Just bring the product out and hit the streets with the marketing and plan on making money right up front. Patent it if you wish but don't expect to be anything but a victim in this game. The patent will only cost you money and drain you every time you turn around.
It will drain you both intellectually and financially and like Farnsworth you may end up killing the pain with alcohol too.
Just take a copy to a notary and have the damned thing notarized. All this talk of mailing stuff to yourself is silly. It makes for interesting evidence, but it's hardly a legal principle on which to base the security of your work. How many ways are there to slip something into a 'sealed' envelope? What if it's David Copperfield, wanting to patent a new type of sword-through-girl-in-box stunt?
Evil is the money of root.
I remember learning about this one for literary material, and possibly software on a permanent media.
Put the story/software in a well-sealed envelope. have it mailed to yourself, date-stamped by the post-office. Never open the envelope unless your creation is challenged.
Of course in the majority of situations this won't hold its water in court. It does however provide low-case proof of the date you mailed yourself the plans/story/code, and thus when the idea came by you. If somebody else sues you for patent violation, you can then use I-came-first.
First time I heard this was before everyone became patent-lawsuit-crazy though. Other measures are definately recommended.
Maybe I should patent this, in case anyone uses it - phorm
Clearly there aren't many lawyers posting here. I'm not one either, but I do have a few patents. This gives me a base from which I can point out a few things:
1) You can not patent an idea. You can patent a "widget" and/or a process to make a widget. In years past they required that you make a model of your widget to accompany the application. Now they just require good drawings.
2) It's expensive, no doubt. That is partly because only lawyers or the criminally insane can deal with the sea of paperwork.
3) Ask yourself, why do I want to patent this? Selling patents is difficult at best. Selling a company that makes the widget, with all the R&D, manufacturing, marketing, sales, AR, AP, etc. in place is much easier. But...I sense that you aren't thinking along those lines.
4) It'll take you several years. You spend a lot of time reading and correcting (lawyers often just don't "get it" and you correct, and correct, and correct...) the application. Much paperwork flows back and forth. You'll have the damn thing memorized before it's over. You'll see it in your sleep.
5) If you draw the right parties' interests, you can spend your life defending your patent in court rooms only to end up broke and in jail. For example, Charles Goodyear - who patented a process to vulcanize rubber. That tire and rubber company named Goodyear was named in his honor by another guy who started a company to use his process, after Goodyear himself had been sucked dry by the legal system. The Goodyear family was not connected to, nor did it benefit from, the company named Goodyear that makes tires to this day.
Just some things to think about.
Just by coincidence, I happened to be researching this very subject earlier today. The best informational site that I found during my brief search was here.
A good bit of advice is to file an $80 provisional patent. It will protect your idea for one year, long enough (hopefully) to start generating a profit. if all works out, you will then be able to afford the patent fees. Note also that for small inventors the fees are halved. it's about $370 for the initial filing, then $1k and change at the 3, 7.5, and 11.5 year marks, for a maintenence fee.
I know other have been saying it, but I wanted to make it clear, especially since the original post says that since he can't find any patents on his idea he feels pretty good. That's only the first step. You gotta look for prior art. This isn't as easy as going to the Patent Office's website and doing a couple automated seaerches. This is what you pay a law firm to do. You should work closely with your law firm to come up with the documents that describe your idea. Then they'll take the description and go search for existing patents *and* prior art. A good law firm will do some very intense searching because when its all over they'll sign something for you that says "this patent doesn't infringe on any existing ideas to the best of our knowledge". Management will pay big bucks for this piece of paper because when the laywers come knocking from another indvidual or company, you get to send them to your law firm. And if your patent is defeated because it infringed, or your lose your protection because prior art existed, you can get your firm to pay you for damages (um, sue their ass) since they "promised" you were in the clear. Its another level of protection that a good firm will provide (yes it is expensive).
Just because you have an idea doesn't mean you should patnet it because no one else has.
Think prior art. If someone else has documented proof that you don't have an original idea, you might as well kiss your patent goodbye.
Besides, why the fsck are you asking here, in anti-patent land?
Idiot.
As a law student I will be villified for this but let me say with total disintered seriousness :
Sure go right ahead and file it yourself, and then be sure to take out that nagging appendix yourself too, and feel free to fire up the welding torch and fix that gas powered hot water heater too. Doing law on your own is no less dangerous.
The Patent process is complex and easy to make a mistake in, and if you fuck it up...so sorry you are out, no do-overs.
Yeah Lawyers are expensive, but ask yourself seriously how much you hope to make off this patent and figure how small a percentage those patent fees will be.
You are likely an engineer of some sort an probably spent many years matering the arcana of your profession. So have lawyers. Especially Patent lawyers. Patent Law is HARD, you have to have an undergrad hard science degree to even SIT for the patent Bar. Most of my fellow law students who want to be Patent Lawyers are already accomplished engineers in their own right, and many hold patents in their own name, so you are also getting someone who can translate tech to english and back again.
Bottom line: If you do it yourself will you ever be able to relax? Think of getting your idea stolen by a large multi-national just after you have invested your life savings in start-up costs; and their very expensive lawyers find fatal flaws in you patent. What you are paying for is peace of mind backed up by malpractice insurance. Lawyers are expensive and worth it.
Whoah. I'm stuck in twilight zone land. Everyone here is supportive. Ouch.
What happened to the "software patents are evil" crowd? We don't even know what kind of idea this dork has!
Italy had it right in the 13th Century. The Venetian equivalent of patents ... had 10 year lifespans.
The U.S. equivalent of patents nominally has a 20 year lifespan after filing. There are effectively 17 years of protection because it typically takes three years or so to get a patent approved.
<devilsadvocate>
What makes you think a 10-year patent term is so much better than a 17-year term? And what makes people think that the 19-year term suggested by Thomas Jefferson for both patents and copyrights is better than life plus 70, which sounds more like a prison sentence?
</devilsadvocate>
Will I retire or break 10K?
BTW IAAL (I am a lawyer)
I'm guessing that's why your "FP" is halfway down the page...
File something, anything, even if you know it won't stand up in court, even if you know there's well known prior art. Find a law firm willing to work for a portion of the settlement you'll get when someone happens to infringe on your obvious idea.
This will NOT get you a patent, but will protect your idea. Clearly document your idea in bound notebook (the kind where the pages cannot be torn out -- look at your local stationary store). Be specific and include all relevent diagrams. Sign and date each page. When you are finished, take the book to your local post office. Mail it back to yourself certified mail (to get a return receipt). When the package arrives, DO NOT open the envelope. The postmark and certified mail receipt prove the date of your invention. If someone tries to take your idea, take them to court. The judge can open the envelope and verify your claim. Total cost: ~$10
Let's twist it around for a moment. Suppose /. were a legal community, and a lawyer said "I've got a great idea for a program, but I don't want to pay one of those greedy programmers to do it." He might write his program, and maybe even well enough to have it work. But I wouldn't want to bet on it.
Personal feelings aside, lawyers have specialized knowledge that will help you through the process. I am in the middle of it myself. Particularly if you have to defend your application, you will likely want a lawyer.
Note that this is not a blanket endorsement. I went to five lawyers before selecting the one I am using. I did almost all of the searching myself. I met with our attorney (who has a Bachelor's in math and a PhD in Computer Science, for the record) several times to get the facts straight, and I edited the application. But I didn't write it. Patent lawyers make a living writing patents, and they know the ins and outs. Their expertise, IMHO, is worth the money.
-db
after reading all the info about the process, i must say, it's a poorly designed and implemented system.
How about developing an expert system, ai or, at least a damn wizard.
2tec ~ procedures should serve
Disinterred? You mean somebody dug you up from your grave? Are you're show you're a law student and not a vampire?
Oh, wait...
I have a few friends that work in the Patent Office (and one studying to be a Patent Lawyer) - one of the fringe benefits of being in Biotech. and being in the DC area. Anyway, once you first submit your patent - EVEN if it is refused - you set the date that YOU have on the patent. If it is refused, and you resubmit, you get to use your original date of submission.
My point? Submit the sucker, most patents are refused the first time out anyway. Get a agent/lawyer to actually help word the document (1-2 days), but the rest you can do yourself. Just be ready for a long wait - and a resubmission.
In a typical american way, americans point out Fairnsworth invented Television, having filed a patent in 1927. Johnny Logie Baird ( from scotland ) filed his patent in 1924, and invented TV way before Fairnsworth
In the end, even if you do get the patent, it doesn't matter if you don't have the moeny to defend it.
Many a patent-holding inventor has still been ripped off and been unable to defend themselves in a lengthy lagal battle against a violator.
If you are planing on developing your invention, then it may be better to save patenting it until after you are well advanced - this way you aren't wasting the patent's time until it is in the marketplace.
If you are planning on trying to sell the invention, theny you can always prepare everthing, but don't file until the last minute.
For example, develop your invention, do the searches and prepare the patent, and then try to sell it. All you need to do is wait until the day after your meeting with whatever company you go to first and then file the application.
They won't have time to do so themselves, and you've given yourself more time.
Also, don't pay the full amount straight away. In Australia, you can apply for a provisional patent for 1 year, and pay for the examination and full patent 12 months afterwards, I bel;ieve the US has something similiar.
In this case, you get the company you are selling the invention to to pay for the full patent, as well as the invention, then it's their job to protect it.
If you haven't been able to sell your invention after 12 months, maybe you need to decide whether it is actually worth it do go on with it. Ideas and inventions are a dime a dozen and only a few make it, you might be better off investing that effort into a different idea.
Ok, who else read the subject line and thought, Why are they patenting midgets?
:)
Who knows, it could be some company trying to clone the genetic code for midgets.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Writing a patent isn't the black art that lawyers claim it to be. A friend of mine used a lawyer for a few hours to learn how to write a patent. Then he went off and wrote it himself. When he had finished most of the work, he returned to the lawyer, who in a few hours corrected all the mistakes. Then he spent $200 on the basic filing fee and voila! Patent on the cheap!
And here I thought someone had gone and patented Little People!! ;)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Study some 'bulletproof' patents, and try to focus on whay they state things the way they do.
Do check out the lawyer's past records. My mom got screwed by a lawyer who was utterly sympathetic to her ex-husband and told her outright lies as to what was legal and what was not. Understood that it isn't in the same arena but a reminder that lawyers aren't the perfect hired guns we would like them to be.
Depending on how novel your idea is, and if it is a process for instance that you can keep secret, patenting it could be the worse thing to do.
Case in point. My friends dad just started a company that has developed a revolutionary way of sterilizing and purifying mass quantities of water, talking hundreds of gallons a second. They are getting contracts to put this on Navy ships so this is no joke. The concept has been played around with for quite some time but nobody has been able to figure out how to get it to work, until now. Their system fits in a box the size of a shipping container and only their people can go inside and service it. When I asked him about patents he said at this point that they are not going to patent the idea. WTF not?
He said that there is an firm in Seattle with 40 Japanese attorneys and all they do is go through patent applications looking for ideas to steal. There is always ways around a patent! I know this sounds consipiracy theorish but this is the truth. By filing a patent they will have to divulge too much information and they believe the chances of someone being able to come up with their same process is slim. Even if someone did they would be so far ahead in the market it wouldn't matter. But if someone was able to copy their idea that they were able to figure out from a patent application but put their own little twist to it than they would be in deep trouble.
Legal stuff is very expensive in the USA. Take the "capitalist" route and look for the cheapest country for patent filing, that still allows you to invoke your right of priority in the USA.
After filing it in a cheaper country, try to commercialize your patent, look for people or companies to team up with.
When you have reason to believe that it'll earn you enough money, or when you get an advance, then file the patent in the USA, using your right of priority.
But don't let the period in which you have that right expire.. check a regular lawyer or other expert for details.
Erwin
If you can't afford the cost of getting the patent, how will you afford the much greater cost of suing an infringer? A patent is just a license to sue. If you read the history of major individual patents (like the Sears adjustable wrench case), you find that the inventor has to sell almost all of his interest in the patent to someone else who bankrolls the lawsuits.
As pointed out earlier, writing the claims is a very tricky technical art -- the claims are the key to the strength of the patent. You need an expert for that.
Be sure to evaluate trade secret protection and other alternatives.
I hold one patent via corporate employment. As someone said, it looks great on the resume.
My grandfather had three electrical and electronics patents and only made money by building one of the products himself for the local market -- the patents were a terrible drain of time, money, and grief for him and his family.
In my opinion, patents are for corporations to swap with each other. They are a source of heartbreak for individuals who don't have the resources to defend them.
Read "Patent it yourself" by NOLO publishers
What I would do and have done is to do my homework very thoroughly. Repeat your prior art search with wellthought out searches. Be very careful that you cover all relevant technical terms and beware that the terms used in patent documents can be very different from the terms used by people in your field. Write down the reasoning behind your searches on paper so that you and a patent attorney or examiner can understand that what you have done is correct. Put the time and effort into understanding patent classification systems. They are complicated but will help your search greatly. Identify aspects of your invention and classify them and search with terms and classes "diagonally", i.e. if your invention pertains to a razor mounted on a bicycle then search in the razor classes with the word bicycle and the other way around. Do this in both the USPTO and EPO systems (Espacenet).
Then you will end up with a pile of print-outs of patents that might or might not be relevant. Go through them one by one making sure that you understand them. For two reasons: Firstly, to find out if your invention is really new and what you actually invented. Secondly, because these patents are a good source of inspiration. You will discover new aspects of your invention that you will want to cover in your claims. You will also find out that there are patents that cannot be understood - period. I don't know what to do about them. Write a complete document to yourself and any patent people explaining why each of the existing patents are not in conflict with your invention. Remember to check in INPADOC what the status of the patents are if possible. Consider what discontinued applications can mean for your invention.
Now you have ammonition. Write up a set of draft claims modelled on the best and broadest of the patents you have read. Make sure that you realize that formulating claims is work for experts.
Write a detailed description of your invention covering every aspect that you can think of and that you have touched upon in your draft claims. Make the best drawings and the clearest text you can at all.
Clear your head for a week. Reread the text you have compiled and start negociating prices with patent people. Show them that you have done a lot of the tedious work for them and make sure that you get a significant discount.
I learned that just having the searches and then relevant patents printed out saved me a bundle. The attorney used Derwent to print out patents and that cost a part from time also $5 a patent. I had printed out the patents from the web for free from USPTO and Espacenet (+JPO). I cannot overemphasize the importance of doing a systematic search and documenting it. I decided to redo several days of work in a systematic fashion and got much more convincing results. Checking the references and examined documents in other patents is also very effective.
You can do a good job yourself but I would never trust myself to write the final claims myself.
virve
--
Big companies and little companies have different rules. Big companies have defensive patenting strategies. 70% of Canon's patents were largely to stake out new intellectual territory. Most of these patents are never used as individuals - the smallest unit of patents for these agreements is often the roomful, unless you are lucky enough to have one of the really key ones (and they are rare).
Small companies and individuals will rarely have enough clout to force a cross-licencing agreement with Intel. Often the best thing they can do with their invention is to get what legal protection they cheaply can, and then lie low, and not attract the attention of the big players. In which case sticking a notice of your invention on an indexed and cross-referenced database that anyone can search is the very last thing you want.
Don't be fooled by the costs of filing a patent. You have to pay to keep the things going, too. How deep are your pockets? Do you want to pay to maintain a badly drafted patent?
You should be able to protect your invention by a 'declaration of invention'. This is a sort of publishing, but it can be obscure as you like. That will at least reserve you the right to a free licence from anyone else who sucessfully files a subsequent patent to manufacture your invention in its present state.
Is your invention really obvious? Some people seem to think that a patent is an award for doping something really clever. Really clever bits of engineering or computing may be best protected by obscurity. A good patent is an award for doing something really obvious. Sony patented the Walkman - a battery cassette recorder but without a record head. Once you see one, you know how it works and why it is worth doing, and then the patent is really valuable to keep off the competition.
You might try using the copyright laws to protect your design. You can write your own copyright (though doing it in some way that lets you prove the date afterwards is obviously a good idea), and you can get 50 years protection, instead of only 17 from a patent.
Some of the big companies are going this way. The really smart option these days is to protect your idea using the trademark laws, which can cover 3-d objects such as the Coca-Cola bottle, or the Jif plastic lemon, and have even been used to cover a scent added to sewing thread. If you can make your printer cartridge a trademarked shape, then no-one will be able to make copies, and the protection on a used trademark never expires.
If, after all this, you still go for a patent, then try and find an agent who is skilled in the field to do the patent searches. There is much prior art that is never found in the digitally searchable archives. When I was trying to find prior art for a type of computer monitor, I could find no prior art on the database searches, but I happened to find an old book on colour TV technologies from the 1960s that listed the amazing lengths people went to to get around the RCA shadow mask patents, including my invention in every detail godammit, and several other variations that I thought too hopeless to be worth persuing.
There is another reason for getting someone else to do your search. It is very hard if you are proud of your idea, to to a good job of trying to knock it down: I know I always did a better job on other people's patents, try how I might.
Oh, and good luck...
Why do you want to file a patent anyway ?
If you intend to develop the idea yourself - just do it. If you succeed - you will have the money to pay the lawers. If you intend to sell or make money from your patent in some other way - any big or even not so big company will use your idea without paying you and you will not be able to enforce your patent !
The bottom line : if you don't have the money to pay patent lawer - you don't have the mony to enforce your patent!
"If I was able to see farther, it was because I was standing on the shoulders of giants." - Sir I.Newton.
IF your invention is marketable, a patent obtained with the services of a patent attorney will be worth the cost, as will be explained below. Obtaining a patent isn't cheap, but the cost needs to be put into perspective. Question: Why do you want a patent to begin with? Answer: Because you want to use it to protect your market so you can make millions (hopefully). With that perspective, is a $10,000 investment in obtaining a good, solid, enforceable patent a bad deal? Typically, though not always, the costs of obtaining a patent will be a small fraction of the cost of ultimately getting a product to market. For example, one fairly simple mold for a plastic part can cost several times the cost of obtaining a patent. Once again, obtaining a patent isn't inexpensive (unless you compare the cost of getting a U.S. Patent with getting a patent in other developed countries), but as you gripe about the cost, you should remember that you and your fees alone are supporting the lawyer and his family, his secretary, his bookkeeper, his library, his landlord, etc., etc., etc. The costs of all that support are not spread out over hundreds and thousands of people like they are when a product is marketed and being bought by all of those people. All that said, you can do your own filing, though it isn't recommended. Writing good, solid applications is a skill. I personally went through a training program with a major company that lasted for six months. After the training, new attorneys weren't allowed to make filings on their own until there had been a review of the application by a more experienced attorney. Why? Because it is easy to do wrong and hard to do right. And two heads are always better than one at nearly anything. If you want to do something yourself, there is a procedure in the USPTO known as a provisional patent application with a small filing fee. It is basically a procedure where an individual inventor can get a filing date for an idea. There are no formal requirements as to form so photos, sketches, etc. can be submitted with a written description - and no claims - setting forth the basic idea. A regular patent application must be filed within one year to keep the original filing date. A provisional application is good only for the information disclosed in it, however. New information appearing in a regular application will be given the new filing date. Based upon my experience, the fees you quoted in your post did not sound out of line. It should not take six months to get a filing, however. Three months should be normal, with most of that time being taken up in waiting for a patent draftsman to get the necessary patent drawings completed. You have to take your place in the line for these services unless you are willing to pay more to bump up your place. Deciding to obtain a patent requires you to balance several considerations - cost versus future earnings, for example. You should remember, however, that without a patent, everyone in the world will be able to rip you off and your idea will likely not be profitable to you under any circumstance in the future.
You need prepaid legal services. Just make a $300 check out to cash, mail it to me and I'll get you signed up right away. ;-]
-
I am a patent agent, and prosecute applications for clients.
Each time mention is made of patents, we see every Bob and Harry post advice attempting to tell you what you should do in your circumstance. Take it all and toss it.
1. You should expect that prosecuting a patent through a patent attorney or agent will require $20K (or occasionally more) out of your pocket.
2. If you can't afford that, you can do it yourself. But keep in mind that unless you are experienced with writing legal documents (especially patent applications), you will probably do a crummy job which will produce a patent of little value. But that might be OK if you intend to use the patent as a marketing tool, and don't intend to enforce it.
3. Take the time to talk to several patent attorneys/agents, and find one that you can work with. Even if you intend to file an application yourself, some patent attorneys will offer help on an hourly basis. Consider that a good investment.
4. If you want to run with the big boys, you have to pony up.
The problem just lies in that start-up money. Often there's no money left for a lawyer and in case there no simple way to file a patent, only large companies can do this.
This means that patents are not what they should be anymore.
Filing a patent should be simple and cheap for individuals.
You already indicate that you need a lot of studying for this. That by itself already makes it very clear that there's a serious problem with the patent system.
Patent It Yourself, 9th Edition
by David Pressman ISBN: 0873378016
Nolo © 2002 (482 pages)
Advice, hints and the necessary forms for patenting your own products.
James Ceresia
"Don't undermine my astronomy" -N.Ceresia
Look jackass, you can't take out a patent on midgets and nobody here thinks the idea is funny. Quit horsing around you insensitive jerks...
...
heh... :)
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
...talking in the third person; get out of here, Pressman.
I hope you are rich and enjoy spending a lot of time in court. If your idea has any potential for profit, some corporation will lock you up in court, filling for continuance (sp?) after continuance until your lawyers fees run you out of money. Then they will pick up your patent for peanuts at the bankrupt hearing. I've personally seen it happen.
In the UK it has been suggested that you send yourself information on your design by registered post (may not even need to be registered), and don't open it. The sealed package, with authoritive date from the post office, can then be used as evidence of prior art should you need to. I'm not a laywer though, so don't quote me on this.
Testing my sig
Check out my Canberra Aikido ANU site
The Patent Office is giving out too many stupid patents to too many stupid people. I, for one, am glad that it costs a few thousands of dollars to get a patent. It keeps people like you, who want to make a quick buck without making any investment, away!!! Good!
I had the same problem awhile back. I did the research at the USPTO just like you did. Writing a patent is a huge pain in the ass. There is more to getting a product to the market than just patenting it. You need to have a prototype designed up and try to activley find 'some' company to licence your product. I did some research and found companies that do all this for you. The cost looks to be considerably less than I would have paid with a patent attorney to patent my product and all that a patent attorney can do is patent your product, not get it to market..
Just a thought.....
(PS if you interested in the company i looked at it was www.180054ideas.com)
No. That is utter nonsense. The envelope trick has no legal weight, period. Ask any IP attorney.
No actually, I think the evelope thing does work with copyright, despite what you think. There are places for writers that will PGP timestamp things for writers. Same principle as the envelope trick.
0 /S eptember/msg00051.html
What the difference is here is that you are talking about patent IP and I am talking about copyright IP.
You could have all the proof in the world that you thought of some invention first, but if you didn't have the money to patent it and somebody else got to it first, well boo hoo.
In copyright law, however, proving you wrote it first will stand up in a court of law. Again, because you don't have to get something copyrighted. If you write something you are automatically covered by copyright laws. The burden on you becomes showing that you wrote it first, not who got to some blasted government office first.
IF this were not the case, why would there be services for writers that date and time stamp what they have written?
Here is someone else saying the same thing I am saying:
http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/lists/progsoc/200
Usurper_ii
Ron Paul
Think for a second. You can't come up with any other reason? No?
Then I have an urgent business matter to discuss with you. It must be held in strictest confidence. I am the nephew of a deposed Nigerian prince...
Write your idea up, date it and mail it to yourself and dont open it. That way you have it in writing that you did it first.
Sheesh.
Nothing at all stops you from mailing an empty envelope (or many) to yourself and using this for the purposes of fraud.
If you want the gov't to legally prove the date on something, do it directly. Find a notary and get them to stamp it.
If you must us the USPS, fold up your piece of paper into an envelope shape and send it to someone else. That way you'll have a stamp on the idea, AND you'll have a witness you can call to testify.