How Do I Put an Invention Into the Public Domain?

Nefarious Wheel writes "I have a couple of inventions — mechanical devices, based on physical principles — that I believe could transform certain aspects of industry. The trouble is, I can't afford to file patents, and even if I could, I'm not sure that would be the best way for these devices to be made available as widely as I'd like. Is there some way to publish the details of these innovations in the public domain in such a way as to protect them from being snaffled away by some patent troll? I'd be happy with a contribution (or simple attribution) model for recompense, which could be zero to whatever, but that's not as important to me as getting the ideas out there for anyone who wants to use them. This isn't copyright, and I know of no patent equivalent to Creative Commons. In short, what's the best way to protect an invention against someone filing a patent on it, short of patenting the device yourself? Can this be done?"

Comments

eh...my invention is better.

[TrekkieGod]

Originally I was going to post an ascii art circle, followed by the phrase, "You know, for the kids."

I could not get past the damn lameness filter (" Filter error: Please use less whitespace"), which has apparently gotten "better", because simply posting lots of normal-looking paragraphs later wasn't enough to override the "percentage" of whitespace, or whatever.

So now I'm forced to start a rant: why the hell is there a lameness filter? Doesn't the moderation system take care of the problem the filter is trying to solve, placing all the otherwise offtopic posts at -1 where no reasonable person will ever see them? And while on the topic of things that have gotten worse with time, what's with the new system that forces you to wait a certain amount of time in between posts? That's really annoying when I'm participating in a topic I know a lot about, and have a lot to say (ok, that only happens with Star Trek articles, but more knowledgeable people than I must run into this problem all the time).

Sigh...sorry about the rant. I had a post which I thought would be quite funny, with a reference that demanded more than simple text, and feel that I was robbed of the opportunity.